Key Takeaways
- More than 1,000 Amazon employees staged a strike on Black Friday in the United Kingdom.
- The staff are demanding a pay rise to £15 per hour amid soaring inflation.
- The strike is organized by the GMB union and focuses on the Coventry warehouse.
London: More than 1,000 of workers went on strike outside a major warehouse of US online retailer Amazon in the United Kingdom on Black Friday, demanding a pay rise, the Independent newspaper reported.
The workers at the company’s site at Coventry have been in a dispute with the company over pay for 28 days, the GMB union said.
“The workers want 15 pounds [$18.9] an hour… It is not too much to ask, it’s a multi-billion pound company that can afford it, but unfortunately, they are not listening,” the GMB regional organizer, Amanda Gearing, told the Independent.
The action against the company is taking place in several other countries, including the United States, Italy and Spain, and will be “the biggest disruption in the company’s 30-year history,” Gearing said.
Amazon told the Independent that no disruption to customers was expected because of the strikes.
The United Kingdom has seen workers strike regularly since last winter, as people express their dissatisfaction with the worsening economic situation caused by rising energy prices and soaring inflation in the country.
