Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) is facing one of its largest strikes during its Black Friday event this year, with workers from 30 different countries, including the UK, set to walk out.
Make Amazon Pay, the campaign group battling the e-commerce giant announced the strikes – scheduled for Friday 24 November – at its inaugural summit in Manchester this weekend.
Various trade unionists and political figures like US senator Bernie Sanders and Spain’s deputy prime minister Yolanda Diaz appeared in support at the summit, encouraging workers to “join the global fight for their rights”.
Speaking at the meeting, Sanders said: “No company is a better poster child for the corporate greed and arrogance that we are seeing in the US, the UK and throughout the world than Amazon.”
Organisations such as UNI Global Union and Progressive International helped organise the campaign and are fighting for better pay for staff working in “high-pressure environments that break their bodies and ultimately force them to quit”.
Profits at Amazon tripled to US$9.9 billion during its third quarter, stoking the campaign group's claims that it “can afford to pay” and that it is squeezing workers to achieve financial growth.
A spokesperson for Amazon said: “We always strive to be better, and while we know we’ve got more work to do, we’re proud of the progress we’ve made.
“We’ve created millions of good jobs while helping create and support hundreds of thousands of small businesses around the world.”
Shares in Amazon.com are trading flat on Tuesday, having opened at around US$133.