Launch of Amazon Prime Day with the workers strike in San Fernando | companies

Amazon begins Monday its first day in 2018, its biggest discount event of the year with Black Friday, with workers at its center in San Fernando de Henares, Madrid, on strike. This year, the company has extended the duration of the event in six hours, compared with last year (it will take place from 12:00 today until 39, 23:59 tomorrow), but its workers will maintain the jobless appeal during the 16th, 17th and 18th of July, after failing negotiations with the multinational, to which they demand "a worthy deal."

Staff asked to boycott the ecommerce giant and not to buy during this 36 hours of super Amazon discounts. They think that otherwise the company would not notice the impact of the strike, being able to handle orders from other logistic centers in Spain, from other European countries, or simply to resort to temporary workers, like Amazon could have done, according to union sources. In 2017, Amazon sold more than 940,000 items on Black Friday in 2016.

The San Fernando de Henares Business Committee calls "inadequate" Amazon's proposals, with which they have held several meetings last week, to find an agreement. In a statement, the union organizations that form the committee showed their rejection of the latest proposal from the company, which set a wage increase of 1.1%, which "does not allow or even recover the 39; accumulated CPI, which is already in 2.3%, "they said.

Workers at the Madrid Logistics Center have been in conflict for several months with the multinational and celebrated their first day of strike last March. It was the first hit of Amazon in Spain. Its employees then denounced the company's intention of forcing the transition from the work agreement that they had then to the logistical agreement of the Community of Madrid, which meant a deterioration working conditions, according to the workers.

In March, the center of San Fernando de Henares had about 1,100 permanent workers and 900 temporary employees hired by Adecco and Manpower. Amazon employees continue to demand not to lose the working conditions they had and to re-evaluate wages, "which we have frozen since 2016," denounced CincoDías Ana Berceruelo, CC OO union delegate . According to sources from the business committee of the Madrid center, this morning will have entered a fifth of the staff in the morning shift, or about 60 people out of 300.

This year, in addition to extending the duration of Premier Day, an event of great discounts directed to Premium customers of the multinational, Amazon launched the "News Prime Day", with new and exclusive products that will be launched during the duration of the promotion, which will also have different items that can not be purchased for a limited time.