Workers at Amazon.com Inc are planning to go on strike on the day of the company’s big Black Friday sale in protest over employment conditions and tax policies.
Employees at the online shopping giant’s warehouses, data centres and offices around the world are being urged to down tools on Friday.
The strikers are demanding Amazon pay workers a living wage, respect their right to join unions, pay its fair share of taxes, and make stronger environmental commitments.
Industrial action in planned in at least 20 countries as part of a globally co-ordinated campaign called ‘Make Amazon Pay’ organised by a coalition of 70 trade unions and organizations including Greenpeace, Oxfam, Amazon Workers International, Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, and the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research.
In Germany, the company’s biggest national market outside the US, Reuters reported that German union Verdi said employees are scheduled to begin striking on Thursday night in at least three different Amazon locations.
Other planned actions include strikes by delivery drivers in Italy, across warehouses in France, along with protests and demonstrations in Bangladesh, Cambodia, South Africa.
A company spokesperson said there was not expected to be any impact on customers.
In a statement, Make Amazon Pay said: "During the Covid-19 pandemic, Amazon became a trillion dollar corporation, with [founder Jeff] Bezos becoming the first person in history to amass $200 billion in personal wealth. Meanwhile, Amazon warehouse workers risked their lives as essential workers, and only briefly received an increase in pay.
"Like all major corporations, Amazon’s success would be impossible without the public institutions that citizens built together over generations. But instead of giving back to the societies that helped it grow, the corporation starves them of tax revenue through its world beating efforts at tax dodging. In 2019, Amazon paid just 1.2% tax in the US, the country it is headquartered in, up from 0% the two previous years."
In the UK last year Amazon’s UK warehouse and logistics business paid £18.3.mln corporation tax for a period when sales at the division surged 64% to £4.85bn and profits rose by a quarter to £128mln.
In total, Amazon paid £492mln tax in the UK from total sales of £20.6bn.
"Amazon is not alone in these bad practices but it sits at the heart of a failed system that drives the inequality, climate breakdown and democratic decay that scar our age. The pandemic has exposed how Amazon places profits ahead of workers, society, and our planet. Amazon takes too much and gives back too little. It is time to Make Amazon Pay," the campaign said.