British warehouse workers seize Amazon Prime Day for strike | Abroad

Nearly 900 employees at an Amazon warehouse in Coventry, England, will be on strike for two hours, both mornings and evenings, from Tuesday to Thursday, British trade union GMB told Reuters news agency. The reason is the wages of the warehouse workers, which according to the union must increase from 11 to 12 pounds per hour to 15 pounds per hour.

Since 2018, Amazon employees have been protesting poor working conditions at the company around Prime Day every year. Two years ago, for example, the German trade union Verdi called for a strike to coincide with the discount campaign. Then it was about the increasing workload, while the salary remained the same. At the time, Amazon emphasized that the company offers excellent wages and other benefits for its employees.

Amazon Prime Day is expected to bring in about $7 billion in revenue, or about $6.4 billion. That would be an increase of 12 percent compared to the same move in the third quarter last year, the US bank JPMorgan calculated.

Last year, Prime members bought more than 300 million items. Amazon then reported that this was equivalent to more than 100,000 items per minute. The total discount amounted to 1.7 billion dollars, which was 1.7 billion euros at the time. Own devices in particular were in demand, including the smart speaker Alexa, electronics and household products.

The US regulator FTC filed a suit against Amazon last week. Customers would join Prime without permission due to Amazon using “manipulative, coercive or deceptive interface designs” to entice them. Amazon said it is “clear and simple” for customers “to both sign up for and cancel their Prime membership.”