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Amazon workers at a vast depot in Coventry will stage a historic strike on Wednesday – the first time the delivery giant’s UK operations have ever been hit by industrial action.
The immediate cause of the dispute was a 50p-an-hour pay rise offered to warehouse staff in the summer, which many felt was insulting – particularly after they had worked throughout the Covid pandemic.
But staff also complain of gruelling round-the-clock shifts and constant, nitpicking monitoring by management.
One worker recently told the Guardian that it was impossible to make ends meet without signing up for a 60-hour week. “I don’t want Jeff Bezos’s boat,” he said. “I definitely don’t want his rocket. But I just want to live.”
It’s a story heard in campaigns by Amazon workers worldwide, including in the US, where there have been some notable recent successes in winning union recognition.
Derrick Palmer, a vice-president of the US Amazon Labor Union, which recently won a recognition battle at an Amazon fulfilment centre in Staten Island, New York, has backed this week’s action in Coventry.
The local Labour MP Taiwo Owatemi is also supportive, having listened to the experiences of workers at the warehouse, which is on a site previously occupied by carmaker Jaguar Land Rover.
