#AMAZON STRIKE ON PRIME DAY FOR FREE#
#AMAZON STRIKE ON PRIME DAY SOFTWARE#

Workers filed a pair of complaints last week with the National Labor Relations Board. Workers are also pressing their case to the federal government, claiming their activism earlier this year was illegally punished. Muse said he expects more than 100 workers to strike. “We see that our fights are stronger together,” said Abdirahman Muse, executive director of the Awood Center, the worker advocacy group spearheading the Minnesota activism, whose backers include the Service Employees International Union, the Teamsters, and the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. It’s the latest example of tech employees with very different jobs trying to forge common cause in the hopes their bosses find their demands harder to ignore.

#AMAZON STRIKE ON PRIME DAY SOFTWARE#

“We’re both fighting for a livable future,” said Seattle software engineer Weston Fribley, one of several employees from the group Amazon Employees For Climate Justice who will be making the trip.

In an effort to show solidarity, a handful of Amazon’s white collar-engineers intend to fly to Minnesota to join the demonstration, where activists will demand the company take action against climate change as well as easing quotas and making more temps permanent employees. In the afternoon, workers also plan to rally outside the facility. On July 15, employees at the Shakopee facility plan to strike about three hours at the end of the day shift and for about three hours at the start of the night shift. In March, workers staged a three-hour strike. In a letter last year to the National Labor Relations Board that was reported by The Verge, an attorney for Amazon said that hundreds of employees at one Baltimore facility were terminated within about a year for failing to meet productivity rates. The pledge to pay $15 an hour didn’t happen until the company had weathered attacks from politicians such as presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, who proposed a “Stop BEZOS” act that would have imposed a tax on companies like Amazon to make up for the cost of government benefits like Medicaid for their employees.īut they say the company has failed to meet worker demands such as converting more temps to Amazon employees and permanently easing productivity quotas they allege make the jobs unsafe and insecure. Critics say it benefits from tax breaks to build warehouses but pays workers so little that some are forced to seek government assistance for basic needs like food and health care. About 250 union pilots who haul packages for Amazon and DHL Worldwide Express staged a brief strike in the leadup to Thanksgiving in 2016 before a federal judge ordered them back to work, eliminating any disruptions during the peak holiday shopping season.Īs one of the world’s most valuable companies - led by Jeff Bezos, the world’s wealthiest person - Amazon has become a symbol of income inequality. workers haven’t walked off the job during key sales days. In Europe, where unions are stronger, Amazon workers routinely strike during big shopping events like Prime Day and Black Friday. “We want to take the opportunity to talk about what it takes to make that work happen and put pressure on Amazon to protect us and provide safe, reliable jobs.”Īmazon, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment on the planned strike.

“Amazon is going to be telling one story about itself, which is they can ship a Kindle to your house in one day, isn’t that wonderful,” said William Stolz, one of the Shakopee employees organizing the strike.

#AMAZON STRIKE ON PRIME DAY FOR FREE#

Amazon started the event five years ago, using deep discounts on televisions, toys and clothes to attract and retain Prime members, who pay subscription fees in exchange for free shipping and other perks. Workers at the Shakopee fulfillment center plan a six-hour work stoppage July 15, the first day of Prime Day. warehouse workers in Minnesota plan to strike during the online retailer’s summer sales extravaganza, a sign that labor unrest persists even after the company committed to paying all employees at least $15 an hour last year.

Amazon strike on prime day