“Make Amazon Pay” protest: What you need to know about the Amazon strike planned for Black Friday

Employees of the largest online retailer in the world plan to go on strike during one of the busiest shopping weekends of the holiday season.

Amazon workers are preparing to protest in 20 countries, including major cities in the US, Germany, UK, Japan and Brazil, starting on Black Friday over “labor abuses, environmental degradation and threats to democracy,” according to UNI Global Union and Progressive International, a global trade union based in Switzerland.

Called “Make Amazon Pay days of resistance,” the strike is scheduled to last from Black Friday to Cyber ​​Monday, the union announced in a press release. Protesters are calling for increased wages and for employees to be allowed to join unions.

The strike could lead to delays in holiday deliveries for customers, economic experts told ABC News.

Unions and allied groups around the world plan to participate, according to the UNI Global Union.

Thousands of workers in the German cities of Graben, Dortmund Werne, Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig, Koblenz and Rheinberg planned to protest, in addition to hundreds in New Delhi demonstrating to demand fair treatment after mistreatment of workers during a heat wave in July, the union said.

The Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen’s Action will hold protests in several cities across France, and garment workers will also take to the streets in Bangladesh, the union said.

This year marks the fifth annual Make Amazon Pay demonstration, which aims to “hold Amazon accountable worldwide” by targeting a busy holiday shopping weekend. By 2023, Amazon represented 18% of worldwide Black Friday sales with more than $170 billion in total holiday sales, according to a earnings report published earlier this year.

“Amazon’s relentless pursuit of profit is going to cost workers, the environment and democracy,” said Christy Hoffman, general secretary of the UNI Global Union. “(Jeff) Bezos’ company has spent untold millions to stop workers from organizing, but the strikes and protests happening around the world show that workers’ desire for justice – for union representation – cannot be stopped. We stand together in demanding that Amazon treat its workers fairly, respect basic rights, and stop undermining the systems that are supposed to protect us all.”

Amazon defended its treatment of workers in a statement to ABC News on Thursday.

“This group is deliberately misleading and continues to promote a false narrative,” Amazon spokeswoman Eileen Hards said. “The fact is, at Amazon, we provide great pay, great benefits, and great opportunities—all from day one. We’ve created more than 1.5 million jobs around the world and counting, and we provide a modern, secure and engaging workplace, whether you work in an office or in one of our operational buildings.”

The company announced earlier this year an investment of 2.2 billion. USD to increase wages for service and transportation workers in the United States. As a result, the average base pay for these employees is now more than $22 an hour and the average total compensation more than $29 an hour when the value of their elected benefits is factored in, according to the company.

Comprehensive benefits for these employees, beginning on the first day of employment, include health, vision and dental insurance; a 401(k) with 50% company match; up to 20 weeks of paid leave, which includes 14 weeks of pregnancy-related disability leave and six weeks of parental leave; and Amazon’s Career Choice program, which prepays college tuition, according to Amazon.

An earlier statement to ABC News from Amazon said, “While we’re always listening and looking for ways to improve, we remain proud of the competitive pay, comprehensive benefits and engaging, safe work experiences we provide our teams.”

Amazon workers have been outspoken in recent years about workers’ rights, especially as the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of online orders. U.S. e-commerce sales rose $244.2 billion — or 43% — in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, rising from $571.2 billion in 2019 to $815.4 billion in 2020, according to the Census Bureau’s annual retail sales survey.

In 2022, a worker-led independent group led the company’s first-ever U.S. union, picketing a 6,000-employee Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York.

While subsequent attempts at facilities in Alabama and New York have failed, efforts have continued.

In June 2023, nearly 2,000 Amazon workers organized a walkout after a mandate to return to the office was issued. In Kentucky, Amazon workers who spoke to ABC News claimed the company was waging a union busting campaign to discourage workers from organizing.

Amazon told ABC News last year that the disciplinary actions the company took at an Amazon facility in Kentucky came in response to violations of company policy.

“Amazon is pushing everything it can get, but it changes its behavior depending on its jurisdiction,” James Schneider, director of communications for Progressive International, told ABC News this week. “Let’s say in Sweden it engages much better in how it operates with unions. But in the US it engages in union busting.”

A 2022 report by the United Nations International Labor Organization found that post-pandemic inflation and the rising cost of living have reduced the value of the minimum wage globally.

The rise in inflation has paved the way for collective action, experts say. (Starbucks was also part of the union’s resurgence in 2022.)

“Amazon is everywhere, but so are we. By uniting our movements across borders, we can not only force Amazon to change its ways, but lay the foundation for a world that prioritizes human dignity, not Jeff Bezos’ bank balance, ” said Varsha Gandikota. -Nellutla, Progressive International’s co-general coordinator.

ABC News’ Max Zahn contributed to this report.