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Amazon
warehouse workers in several countries in Europe are protesting over what they
claim are inhuman working conditions which treat people like robots. It’s the
latest in a series of worker actions this year.
They’ve
timed the latest protest for Black Friday, one of the busiest annual shopping
days online as retailers slash prices and heavily promote deals to try to spark
a seasonal buying rush.
In the UK,
the GMB Union says it’s expecting “hundreds” to attend protests timed for early
morning and afternoon at Amazon warehouses in Rugeley, Milton Keynes,
Warrington, Peterborough and Swansea.
At the time
of writing the union had not provided details of turnout so far.
Protests are
also reported to be taking place in Spain, France and Italy today. Although,
when asked about strikes at its facilities in these countries, Amazon claimed:
“Our European Fulfilment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus
on delivering for our customers. Any reports to the contrary are simply wrong.”
The demonstrations
look intended to not only apply pressure on Amazon to accept collective
bargaining but encourage users of its website to think about the wider costs
involved in packing and despatching the discounted products they’re trying to
grab.
Spanish
newspaper El Diaro reports that today’s protests by workers at Amazon’s largest
logistics center in the country, in San Fernando, Madrid, mark the fourth round
of strikes over working conditions in Spain.
Protestors
in Madrid this morning reportedly chanted: “We will not accept discounts to our
rights.”
A report by
AP quotes the spokesman of the protest group in Spain, Douglas Harper, claiming
that around 90 percent of workers at a logistics depot in near Madrid joined
the walkout — leaving just two people at the loading bay. Though Amazon
reportedly diverted cargo deliveries to its other 22 depots in the country.
Update:
Amazon disputes the 90% figure. A spokesman told us: “The numbers released by
the unions are categorically wrong. Today, the majority of our associates at
Amazon’s Fulfillment Center in San Fernando de Henares (Madrid) are working and
processing our customers’ orders, as they do every day.”
French press
also reports warehouse workers striking locally, and a union representing
Amazon logistics workers calling for a national strike.
In the UK
the GMB Union is calling on Amazon to recognize its representation of workers,
and has attacked the company for what it dubs “Victorian working practices”.
This summer
an investigation by the Union revealed ambulances had been called to Amazon’s
UK warehouses 600 times during the past three financial years.
Earlier this
month the Union also revealed a total of 602 reports have been made from Amazon
warehouses to the Health and Safety Executive since 2015/16 — with workers
reported to have suffered fractures, head injuries, contusions and collisions
with heavy equipment.
It added
that one report detailed a forklift truck crash caused by a ‘lapse of
concentration possibly due to long working hours’.
In a
statement on Wednesday announcing the Black Friday protest, Tim Roache, the
GMB’s general secretary, said: “The conditions our members at Amazon are
working under are frankly inhuman. They are breaking bones, being knocked
unconscious and being taken away in ambulances. We’re standing up and saying
enough is enough, these are people making Amazon its money. People with kids,
homes, bills to pay — they’re not robots.”
“Jeff Bezos
is the richest bloke on the planet; he can afford to sort this out,” he added.
“You’d think making the workplace safer so people aren’t carted out of the
warehouse in an ambulance is in everyone’s interest, but Amazon seemingly have
no will to get round the table with us as the union representing hundreds of
their staff. Working people and the communities Amazon operates in deserve
better than this. That’s what we’re campaigning for.”
In a further
update today the GMB Union said Amazon has not replied to a joint plea, backed
by a shadow minister, for a health and safety review to reduce the hundreds of
ambulance call outs to its warehouses.
Two UK MPs
wrote to Amazon’s director of public policy for UK and Ireland last week to
suggest a joint audit with the union and also a meeting hosted by them in
parliament — to discuss the issues. But the union said Amazon has so far failed
to respond.
Responding
to today’s protest action, a spokesman for Amazon UK provided us with the
following statement:
Amazon has created in the UK more than
25,000 good jobs with a minimum of £9.50/hour and in the London area,
£10.50/hour on top of industry-leading benefits and skills training
opportunities.
All of our sites are safe places to work and
reports to the contrary are simply wrong. According to the UK Government’s
Health and Safety Executive, Amazon has over 40% fewer injuries on average than
other transportation and warehousing companies in the UK. We encourage everyone
to compare our pay, benefits, and working conditions to others and come see for
yourself on one of the public tours we offer every day at our centers across
the UK uk.amazonfctours.com.
The
spokesman declined to respond to additional questions.
In October,
facing rising political pressure on its home turf after senator Bernie Sanders
introduced legislation targeting low rates of pay at the coal face of Amazon’s
business, the ecommerce giant said it would raise the minimum wage of its US
workers to $15 per hour. That change went into effect at the start of this
month.
In another
change to its business announced yesterday, also just before the Black Friday
spending binge kicked off, Amazon reversed a decision that had been triggered
by a change in Australian tax law earlier this year, when it had shuttered its
US store to shoppers in the country to avoid paying a 10% levy — deciding to
suck up the charge to lift a geoblock that had proved unpopular with customers.
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