Amazon employees plan global strike

Amazon workers worldwide are planning to strike on one of many busiest procuring days of the yr.

Make Amazon Pay, a coalition of staff and activists, is organizing Black Friday protests to demand the retail large elevate wages, pay extra taxes and cut back its carbon footprint, based on its web site. The strikes are set to happen at factories, warehouses, information facilities, company places of work and oil refineries internationally, together with websites in Minnesota, California, Boston and New York Metropolis. 

Make Amazon Pay revealed a listing of 25 calls for on its web site that embrace elevating wages and lengthening paid sick go away, providing unions entry to Amazon worksites, committing to zero emissions by 2030 and paying taxes in full by “ending tax abuse by means of revenue shifting, loopholes and using tax havens, and offering full tax transparency.”

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Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel mentioned in an emailed assertion that whereas the corporate is “not good in any space,” the corporate takes its position and affect “very significantly.”

Nantel pointed to the corporate’s pledge to hit web zero carbon by 2040; its “aggressive wages and nice advantages” with common beginning wages at greater than $18 per hour, relying on location; and the corporate’s $1.7 billion federal revenue tax expense reported in 2020. The spokesperson added that Amazon is “inventing new methods” to maintain workers secure and wholesome.

Nantel didn’t say how the protests would have an effect on vacation customers. 

The trillion-dollar firm and its founder, billionaire Jeff Bezos, have just lately come below hearth for a myriad of points. The corporate faces numerous antitrust investigations from numerous entities, together with regulators within the U.S., Canada and the European Union, and is steadily accused of overworking its workers whereas providing insufficient wages. President Joe Biden and others have additionally criticized the quantity of taxes the corporate pays. 

Bezos acknowledged in an April letter to shareholders that Amazon wants “to do a greater job for our workers.”

Regardless of the pushback, the continuing coronavirus pandemic has helped Bezos turn out to be the primary particular person in historical past with a web price surpassing $200 billion. 

“The pandemic has uncovered how Amazon locations income forward of staff, society, and our planet,” Make Amazon Pay mentioned in a press release. “Amazon takes an excessive amount of and offers again too little.”

Observe USA TODAY reporter Bailey Schulz on Twitter: @bailey_schulz.