Hundreds of Amazon employees in the UK went on strike on Friday, right in the middle of Black Friday, one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
Members of the GMB union, engaged in a pay dispute with the American online retail giant, held a picket line outside the company’s Coventry site.
More than a thousand workers took part in Friday’s industrial action, including some 800 on the picket line, GMB said, while strikes are also taking place in Europe and the USA.
In January, Amazon employees in Coventry, central England, were the first to go on strike in the UK.
The company recently announced that it would increase the minimum starting wage to £13 an hour from April, depending on location, but the union has demanded a wage of at least £15 as well as better working conditions.
Speaking on the picket line in Coventry, GMB member Stuart Richards noted that Amazon’s offer “is not good enough”. Workers “deserve better than this. They deserve a decent wage from a company that is making huge profits.”
Union members have led actions in five different countries, including Germany, the US and Italy, Richards detailed.
“This is a global wake-up call for Amazon. The company cannot continue to ignore the concerns of these workers and those working in warehouses around the world,” he hammered.
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