Bezos in Trouble: Amazon Faces Walkouts, Strikes During ‘Prime Day’ Sale Season

Amazon is facing walkouts and strikes during its “Prime Day” sale season, as the employees who handle the massive amount of packages that fly through the company’s facilities demand better pay, fair treatment, and an end to retaliatory behavior.

Potential walkouts, strikes, and the potential unionization of additional warehouses are looming over Amazon as it deals with the real threat of work stoppage amid one of its busiest sale seasons, reports the Verge.

Amazon employees at the company’s Inland Empire air cargo facility in San Bernardino, California, say they are going on strike starting on Friday. Another potential strike may transpire at an Amazon location in Buford, Georgia.

There have also been walkouts at facilities in Joliet, Illinois, and Stone Mountain, Georgia.

Workers in Illinois are reportedly demanding that something be done about violence, injury, and sexual harassment. Amazon has allegedly fired an employee in Illinois after they tried to get the company to respond to an alleged racist death threats written on a restroom wall.

On the other side of the country, Amazon employees in California are demanding “basic safety measures” after workers accused the company of not giving them breaks or aid during excessive heat in the state. Overall, employees are also asking for better pay.

Meanwhile, Amazon workers at a facility in Albany, New York, have begun voting on whether to organize with the Amazon Labor Union, the group that has already successfully unionized another one of Amazon’s facilities.

Moreover, another warehouse in Moreno Valley, California, has also decided to hold a vote on whether to unionize. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), however, still has to confirm that 30 percent of the center’s employees have agreed to hold the election.

The Worker Agency’s Jane Chung says Amazon “failed to meet workers’ demands and has responded to workers who are organizing to improve their jobs by bringing in high-paid outside consultants who harass and follow workers around in an attempt to dissuade them from organizing for better conditions.”

Chung also said the company’s Prime Day events worsen its “invasive surveillance, dangerous pace of work, and deadly conditions,” because it means workers have to “sprint to fulfill the massive growth in packages ordered, transported, and delivered.”

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