Further strikes planned at an Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) UK facility could cost the company more than £2mln, the union organising the walkout has calculated.
Up to 400 workers at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse will again walk out on Thursday 2 March, with a longer period of industrial action planned later in the month.
These are first-ever strikes the company has faced in the UK, following protests last year at the Coventry warehouse and informal demonstrations at Amazon sites in Swindon in Wiltshire and Tilbury in Essex.
Workers are angry at an enforced pay rise of 50p per hour, the GMB union said, a 5% increase when UK consumer price inflation was over 10%.
Amazon Coventry workers will also walk out for five consecutive days from 13 to 17 March, with the union estimating a sizeable combined cost of the eight days of action.
The estimate assumes Amazon workers contribute equally to revenue generation, which was US$30bn in the UK last year, and that the worldwide split between AWS and retail sales is replicated in the UK, as Amazon only declares its total UK revenues in its American regulatory filings.
“The public and Amazon customers will be asking themselves why one of the world most profitable companies is willing to take a big financial hit instead of resolving this dispute," said Amanda Gearing, GMB senior organiser.
“All these low-paid workers want is a £4.50 rise for low paid workers. Instead, Amazon’s refusal to negotiate is hitting shareholders in the pocket.
“People will be forgiven for reaching the conclusion that Amazon top brass are focused only on breaking the spirit of striking workers in Coventry.”
Union members voted 98% in favour of industrial action, according to GMB, while support has also come from local MP Taiwo Owatemi and Derrick Palmer, vice-president of the US Amazon Labour Union.
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