“I just want to live” – Foxglove and GMB host Amazon worker international solidarity rally, with the ALU, UK and US workers and Taiwo Owatemi MP
“I don’t want Jeff Bezos’s boat, I definitely don’t want his rocket – but I just want to live.”
That was how one UK Amazon worker summed up the situation he and his fellow workers face right now in the tech retail giant’s warehouses.
The worker spoke under the pseudonym ‘George’ and had a sticker in Amazon orange taped over his camera to prevent retaliation against him for speaking out.
Watch the full video here:
We also heard the Amazon Labour Union’s Vice President Derrick Palmer’s pro tips for beating Amazon’s union-busting playbook following their success in unionising the first Amazon warehouse in the United States.
It’s an important time in the UK right now, the Coventry warehouse is the first UK Amazon warehouse to take part in a formal strike ballot! GMB Midlands Organiser Rachel Fagan told the rally last night how GMB has worked for a decade to reach this moment, having seen their members forced to urinate in bottles due to Amazon’s unrealistic and unfair targets and witness managers refuse to call ambulances to warehouses because of a failure to take workers’ health and safety seriously.
Workers are now voting on whether to walk out over Amazon’s offer of 35p pay increase in the midst of Amazon recording a £20.6 billion profit in the pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis. The ballot closes on the 19th of November, and it isn’t too late to get your ballot paper in and have your say (the cut off is this Friday 14th October)!
If you’re an Amazon worker and you aren’t yet a union member, Foxglove strongly recommends joining GMB now: https://www.gmb.org.uk/join-gmb
Foxglove is working to support Amazon workers. If you want to fight to make your workplace fairer with us – get in touch via our confidential Signal number (or WhatsApp) on +44(0) 7518 115223 or email info@foxglove.org.uk