Starting from today, Amazon is facing Black Friday protests in thirty countries. UNI Global Union is orchestrating actions in Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom, among others. Elsewhere, Amazon has found cause for celebration…
“Make Amazon Pay”
Trade unions and activists worldwide are using the logistical peak of Black Friday to put pressure on Amazon: with the “Make Amazon Pay” campaign, UNI Global Union is supporting global worker protests. In five warehouses in Germany, employees are on strike: trade union Verdi says they want to clarify that they do provide turnover, but are still waiting for salary negotiations.
A thousand British workers have dropped tools at the distribution centre in Coventry, over a long-running dispute over salaries. Demonstrations are also taking place at the head office in London. In northern Italy, a general strike is under way, with Amazon’s fulfilment centre in Castel San Giovanni being specifically targeted. On Cyber Monday, Spanish union CCOO is calling for a one-hour strike per shift.
In Belgium, unions have planned a demonstration at Amazon’s Brussels offices as well as action at the congress of trade union ACV Puls. At Amazon’s European headquarters in Luxembourg, workers and sympathisers are protesting against the recent rounds of layoffs, as well as the United States giant’s tax evasion.
Amazon on the floor
Dutch employees are apparently not striking today, but climate activists are planning actions at Amazon Web Services (AWS) facilities – as they are in (among others) Canada, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan and the UK. In France, activists target Amazon’s parcel lockers: the anti-globalisation campaigners of Attac call for lockers to be rendered unusable by covering them with posters and tape. Some 100 lockers were treated that way last year.
However, not all news is bad for Amazon today: on this Black Friday, the company is allowed to score a deal for itself. The European Union has greenlit its acquisition of Roomba maker iRobot, Reuters reports. In August last year, Amazon wanted to buy the robot hoovers for 1.7 billion dollars, but the European Commission wanted to investigate the deal first, stating that the stakes of the acquisition are mainly data. The robot hoovers map customers’ homes, which could give Amazon important insights about consumers’ living situations. However, the EU has now said it does not see any problems in the deal after all.
