Powerful picket line saw day shifts ended early and night shifts cancelled
In what GMB union called the biggest week of industrial disruption in the company’s history, workers at Amazon managed to shut down a warehouse in their latest strike as over 1,100 people walked out.
Workers at two Amazon warehouses took strike action last week, as Saturday, 5 August marked the year anniversary since the landmark wildcat strikes and walkouts at multiple Amazon sites across the UK in response to workers being offered a ‘pathetic’ 35p pay rise.
Now, the movement has grown to huge strengths, undeterred by the apparent union-busting crack down the delivery giant has thrown in their way.
Having recently voted by 86% to take up strike action, over 100 workers in the Rugeley warehouse downed their tools on 3 and 4 August, whilst workers at Coventry’s BHX4 warehouse walked out again on 4 and 5 August.
On Saturday, unions expressed solidarity with strikers as representatives from the PCS, RMT, UCU and NEU along with Coventry TUC and other international union representatives joined the picket line.
Large crowds with banners and flags, along with a Samba band, added to the impressionable scale of the strike action. This, along with the sheer scale of workers now on strike at the warehouse as more workers join the union with every strike, saw the mass picketing force Amazon bosses to shut down the BHX4 fulfilment centre over the weekend.
Not only did the supplying hub shut down but day shifts were ended early and the night shifts were cancelled, with workers still receiving full pay.
Speaking at the strike, Amazon Coventry worker Darren Westwood said: “The fact that we’ve shut down that place, it might only be one day but the fact that you people turned up today, and we really appreciate it, you’ve shown up today and that has caused Jeff to phone Seattle and close that building down.”
Since their historic strike back in January, when staff in Coventry became the first Amazon workers in the UK to take industrial action, GMB union membership at the fulfilment centre has gone from around 300 at the start to over 1,100 workers today.
During last week’s strikes the union slammed Amazon for deploying fences on site in an attempt to try and stop the union organising. However, GMB said this was impossible because, ‘the union is inside the fulfilment centre. Amazon workers are the GMB.’
GMB Midlands organiser Stuart Richards summed it up: “Amazon bosses can try to stick their fingers in their ears, but the voices raised in protest get louder every day.”
Amazon workers are demanding union recognition and for their wages to be increased to £15 an hour. As Amazon owner Jeff Bezos remains one of the richest men in the world and the delivery company’s UK division paid no corporation tax for a second year in a row whilst its pretax profits rose to almost £222 million in 2022.
Total days lost to strike action at Amazon UK this year now total 26. Whilst the union’s Crowdfunder to support workers on strike has raised over £16,600 so far.
(Photo credit: Stuart Richards / Twitter)
Hannah Davenport is trade union reporter at Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward’s trade union reporting is supported by the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust
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