Amazon warehouse workers in the UK stage first-ever strike to protest treatment of robots

Hundreds of Amazon workers in Britain are on strike, marking the first formal industrial action for the U.S. tech giant in the country.

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The 24-hour strike action began on Wednesday at midnight. Strikers are expected to picket outside the company's site in Coventry, England, throughout the day.
At 6 a.m. London time, workers were pictured camping by a bonfire and waving union flags outside the Coventry site near Birmingham airport. The workers were protesting the proposed closure of the site, which is known as BHX4.

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One sign behind the workers read "Fight for £15," encouraging them to join the GMB union. Another sign, bannered across a fence, read: "The wrong Amazon is burning."
The GMB Union, which represents the workers involved in the walkout, said it expects 300 employees out of a total 1,000 at the plant to participate.
Workers are planning to hold a larger scale demonstration from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. London time. This will be a great opportunity for workers to show their solidarity and to demand better working conditions.

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Staff are unhappy with a pay increase of 50 pence (56 U.S. cents) per hour, which is only 5% and well below inflation. Amazon introduced the pay hike last summer, but warehouse workers say it fails to match the rising cost of living. They want the company to pay a minimum of £15 an hour. Amazon workers have raised concerns about long working hours, high injury rates, and the unrelenting pace of work, as well as aggressive, tech-enhanced monitoring of employees. They also want better working conditions.

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A spokesperson for Amazon told CNBC in a statement that the staff involved in the strike represent "only a fraction of 1% of our UK employees." The spokesperson said that pay for Amazon's U.K. warehouse workers has increased 29% since 2018, and pointed to a £500 one-time payment made out to staff to help with the cost-of-living crisis.

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This is the first legally mandated strike against Amazon in the U.K. Previous work stoppages have been spontaneous, occurring in August and on Black Friday in November. Darren Westwood, one of Amazon's warehouse workers taking part in the strikes, said that it has been a long road to the day of the strike itself, which he described as historic.

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Westwood told CNBC that people were angry about the profits corporations were making during the pandemic. He said that people were expecting a better increase than what corporations were imposing.

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Inflation has increased significantly due to higher energy costs and disruptions to supply chains caused by the war in Ukraine. Consumer prices rose by 10.5% year-on-year in December, prompting the Bank of England to raise interest rates in an attempt to control rising costs. Westwood said that he and his partner are in a reasonable financial position for now, but he worries for other employees. One of whom he said was working 60 hours a week to meet mortgage payments.

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Westwood told CNBC that someone said we're treated like robots - but that robots are actually treated better. It's a frustrating situation, and one that needs to be addressed.

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Amazon is laying off thousands of workers worldwide, including 18,000 last week. The company is scaling back its expansion in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and preparing for a possible recession in 2023. Wednesday's action in the U.K. is part of this larger effort. Earlier this month, Amazon announced plans to close three of its sites in the UK, which employ a total of 1,200 people. The company says this is not part of its 18,000 job cuts worldwide.

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Amazon has long been criticized for its labor practices, with the company often accused of poor working conditions in its warehouses and delivery operations and squashing attempts from employees to unionize. In April, staff at the company’s Staten Island warehouse in New York became the first group in the U.S. to vote in favor of joining a union.

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Chris Smalls of the Amazon Labor Union has called on the company to negotiate in good faith with its unions, saying that workers in Coventry deserve better pay and benefits. The Amazon Labor Union was established to give workers a voice and fight for their rights, and Smalls says it's time for Amazon to live up to its claims of being the best company on Earth.

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Amazon has previously said that its employees have the right to join or not join a union, but that it doesn’t believe unions are the best choice for its workers.