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Amazon workers in Germany, Spain, Italy and the UK left work on Black Friday, mixing labor unrest and the start of the biggest shopping season of the year.
According to Business Insider, nearly 90% of the workers – about 1,600 employees – participated in the strike held in Spain's largest Amazon warehouse in San Fernando de Henares, near Madrid, and will continue their strike on Saturday. announced the Reuters agency.
Some 620 workers also left the German distribution centers in Bad Hersfeld and Rheinberg. But Amazon officials said most employees were still working and that customer service was not affected, according to Reuters.
The 24-hour strike in Germany was organized by the service union Ver.di, which calls for better wages and safe and healthy working conditions.
"We are entering the end-of-year wave, the most stressful period for employees," union representative Mechthild Middeke told Reuters. "Especially a day like Black Friday, employees should be the focus of concern."
The union, which has been demanding higher wages for years, said Amazon workers were paid lower wages than other retail and mail order sectors. But Amazon says that work sites are logistical centers and pay well for this sector, reported the Associated Press. The German staff earns a starting salary equivalent to 12.23 US dollars, according to Reuters.
According to one of the first statements of the British GMB union, hundreds of people are expected to strike Friday at five different locations in the UK to protest the "inhumane conditions" in Amazon's warehouses. GMB says ambulances have been called 600 times in Amazon warehouses over the past three years, ending in May, to heal workers' injuries at work.
"The working conditions of our members at Amazon are downright inhuman," said Tim Roache, general secretary of GMB. "They break their bones, are stunned and taken away in ambulances.
He added, "We get up and say that's enough. These are people who make money at Amazon. People with children, houses, bills to pay – they are not robots. Jeff Bezos is the richest guy on the planet. he can afford to solve this problem. "
Amazon announced last month that it would raise its minimum wage to $ 15 an hour in the United States, but then eliminated several financial benefits apparently as a means of funding the hourly increases.
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