On Black Friday, protesters targeted Amazon buildings.
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On Black Friday, protests are taking place at Amazon locations in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe.
The day of the shopping sales is one of Amazon’s busiest of the year.
A day of action is being organised by “Make Amazon Pay,” an international coalition of labour, equality, and environmental organisations.
The campaign is calling for Amazon to make changes to its company, such as better pay, the elimination of employee surveillance, and union participation.
The Extinction Rebellion environmental group has blocked the doors of Amazon distribution centres in the UK in a separate protest.
The gang claims to have attacked 13 British buildings, including Dunfermline’s largest.
The Make Amazon Pay group is unrelated to the Extinction Rebellion campaign, but it does involve environmental groups like Greenpeace. Because no Amazon warehouses in the United Kingdom are unionized, so legally they can’t strike.
Many Amazon employees will be working on the day, but campaign organisations, including Amazon employees, are planning protests outside the company’s offices in Coalville, Leicestershire, Coventry, Peterborough, and London.
Strikes, on the other hand, are encouraged in some places. In Germany, for example, the Verdi union has called for a walkout to begin on Wednesday night at major shipping centres. In France, the CGT, a prominent labour union, is also calling on workers to stop working.
The GMB union also released numbers on Friday claiming that ambulance calls to Amazon warehouses surged by over 50% in the run-up to Black Friday, which it attributes to employees hurrying to meet crushing expectations.
It requested information from four ambulance trusts located near important Amazon locations under the Freedom of Information Act. According to the data, November has had the highest number of ambulance visits in the last five years. “Such assertions, according to Amazon, use incomplete information that is out of context and is intended to purposely deceive.”