Unions representing tens of thousands of Amazon.com Inc. employees are planning walkouts and other action as the year’s busiest shopping season begins this week, in protest at the e-commerce giant’s handling of everything from sick pay and COVID-19 precautions to user privacy.
The giant Verdi trade union in Germany is holding a walkout across seven Amazon facilities, it said in a statement Thursday. It’s part of the Make Amazon Pay campaign, an assemblage of organized labor, human rights organizations, environmentalists and other groups that are demanding changes at the Seattle-based company in a program of protests and online press conferences.
Garment workers in Bangladesh will call for higher pay outside an Amazon supplier facility in Dhaka. In Australia, unions will perform "health and safety” inspections of the company’s facilities using their "statutory right of entry,” the campaign said.