Several employees of Amazon threats the company to strike, walk out, and form another unionized warehouse in the middle of the retail company's busiest season.
An employee works at the Amazon electronic commerce company's logistics center in San Fernando de Henares, near Madrid, on the eve of "Black Friday", on November 24, 2016.
GERARD JULIEN/AFP via Getty Images
Amazon Employees Walkout and Strike
In the middle of the busiest season in the market as Black Friday and Cyber Monday approaches, Amazon workers who handle these packages from facilities, warehouses, and air hubs are demanding the company much higher pay and better treatment.
Based on a report from The Verge, workers at Amazon's ALB1 facility located in Albany, New York initiated the voting on organizing with the Amazon Labor Union, the same group that unionized the Amazon JFK8 facility in Staten Island.
Aside from this, a fulfillment center located in Moreno Valley, California also organized voting to join ALU. No confirmations yet from the National Labor Relations Board if 30% of the unit's 800 workers have signed regarding their interest in the voting.
Meanwhile, workers from the Inland Empire air cargo facility in San Bernardino, California threatened the company with a walkout on the same day as Prime Day as they planned to strike starting Friday. Alongside this facility, several facilities have don walkouts such as in Buford, Georgia, Joliet, Ilinois, and Stone Mountain, Georgia.
BREAKING: Amazon workers at Stone Mountain (ATL2) in Georgia walked off the job AGAIN today after Amazon offered them negligible raises in response to their last walkout. Workers are demanding $24/hour. pic.twitter.com/NHvxbeZI6t
According to More Perfect Union, these walkouts were rooted in the demand for higher wages yet received a "negligible raises" as a response from Amazon. They stated that one of the workers who leads the strike was given a 50-cent-raise on their second Prime Day despite requesting a $3-per-hour raise.
While most of the concerns were wages, some demanded protection against violence, injury, and sexual harassment. These include facilities from California that demand "basic safety measures" as they were not given breaks or aid during excessive heat.
Just this year, a worker died on Prime Day because of the heatwave, yet the company blamed the victim's personal medical condition. As a response, Amazon installed new air conditioning equipment where the incident happened.
An employee was also fired after speaking out against racism in the MDW2 facility in Joliet, Illinois. As per her interview, she threatened to take legal action if Amazon will not make a move on protecting its employees. Davis stated, "We had to make a choice of do we stay and make money and be able to pay our bills on the first, or do we go home and be safe."
Dozens of workers were also suspended by the company in JFK8 as they refused to go back to work in their assigned warehouse. This incident happened when the facility was filled with smoke after a fire attack happened.
