Amazon employees in 20 countries are reportedly preparing to strike on Black Friday as part of a campaign titled “Make Amazon Pay.”
Business Insider reports that Amazon employees in 20 different countries are planning a mass strike on Black Friday, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, as part of the “Make Amazon Pay” campaign. The campaign includes a coalition of 70 organizations including Greenpeace, Oxfam, and Amazon Workers International.
The workers are demanding accountability from top executives who they believe are placing profits ahead of worker wellbeing. Individual workers “from oil refineries, to factories, to warehouses, to data centers, to corporate offices” are expected to take part in the walkout on November 26.
Make Amazon Pay wrote in a list of demands on its website: “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 protests come as Amazon employees continue to complain of long hours, low pay, and strict performance review systems. Make Amazon Pay is demanding increased salaries, improved job security, and the suspension of the “harsh productivity and surveillance regime Amazon has used to squeeze workers.”
The group is also calling for a “pay back to society” which will include enhanced environmental sustainability efforts, increased transparency over the use of user data and privacy measures, and the immediate end of partnerships between Amazon and police forces and immigration authorities which are “institutionally racist.”
“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,” Make Amazon Pay wrote in its demands.
A company spokesperson told Business Insider that the company is “inventing and investing significantly” in several of the categories that the campaign is calling for action in, including climate efforts. The spokesperson said:
These groups represent a variety of interests, and while we are not perfect in any area, if you objectively look at what Amazon is doing in each one of these areas you’ll see that we do take our role and our impact very seriously.
Make Amazon Pay was formed in 2020 and has since helped to organize a number of strikes and protests against company policies. The campaign states on its website: “During the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon became a trillion dollar corporation, with 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.”
A video on the Make Amazon Pay website further states: “Amazon’s wealth has increased so much during the pandemic that its owners could pay all 1.3 million of its employees a $690,000 COVID bonus and still be as rich as they were in 2020.”
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com