Trade unionists from Europe and the US joined hundreds of strikers outside Amazon’s Coventry warehouse on Friday (November 24).
This is part of a global campaign calling for better working conditions at the internet retailer.
Activists from Germany, Italy and California showed their solidarity with the Coventry strikers who have taken 28 days of industrial action since January.
Who is on strike against Amazon and what do they want?
Amazon workers are on strike against the company. They argue that the retailer pays warehouse workers lower wages compared with employees in other sectors of the company. They also want better health and safety policies. Some also have concerns about the e-commerce corporation’s environmental footprint.
Workers first went on strike last summer after they were offered a 50p-an-hour rise. Since then, the basic rate of pay has increased several times and will rise to £12.30 an hour.
Amazon denies the increases have any link with the industrial action, insisting it reviews pay regularly and always has.
Jessie Moreno, who delivers Amazon parcels from Palmdale, in the California desert, told the Guardian: "This isn’t just a US fight, this is a global fight, so we are happy to come here to support our brothers and sisters at the GMB.
"We have to spread the word and bring awareness,” he added. “The issues are the same, no matter where you are, no matter what country you’re in — it’s all the same."
"It’s the living conditions, it’s respect, and of course it’s money. We’re living in poverty conditions while the CEO, Jeff Bezos, gets richer and richer off our hard work, and we’re just struggling to put food on the table."
Standing with campaigners, Alke Bössiger, the deputy general secretary of the UNI global union, one of the co-convenors of the Make Amazon Pay campaign, said: "It’s really important that people here know that they’re not lonely in this fight. It’s a long game, it’s not that we can achieve something overnight."
She said 150 actions against Amazon were taking place in more than 30 countries on Friday. "Some of the actions are strikes and some of them are protests — on environmental issues, for example," Bössiger added. "It’s such a big company and it has such a big global footprint." She raised other issues including taxation and claims of monopoly power.
