‘Amazon.Com UK Strike Could Cost £2mln’

(CTN News) – A union organising a walkout at Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN)’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) British facility may cost the company more than £2mln if further strikes are planned, according to the union organising the strike.

A further round of industrial action is planned later in the month, involving up to 400 workers at Amazon’s Coventry warehouse, with a longer period of industrial action planned for the second week of March.

In truth, this is the first time the company has been faced with strikes in the UK after protests at their warehouse in Coventry last year, as well as informal demonstrations at Amazon sites in Swindon in Wiltshire and Tilbury in Essex.

As a result of an enforced pay rise of 50p per hour, the GMB union said that workers are angry after being forced to work longer hours for an increase of 5%, while inflation in the UK was over 10%.

There are also plans for Amazon Coventry workers to walk out for five consecutive days between 13 and 17 March. The union estimates the combined costs of the eight days of action will amount to a substantial amount.

According to the estimate, Amazon employees contribute equally to revenue generation in the UK, which accounted for $30 billion in revenue generation last year.

Since Amazon only discloses its total UK revenues in its American regulatory filings, the global split between AWS and retail sales is replicated in the UK.

“People and Amazon customers will likely ask why one of the most profitable companies in the world is willing to take a big financial hit instead of resolving this dispute,” says GMB’s Amanda Gearing.

As far as these low-paid workers are concerned, all they want is an increase of £4.50 a week.

The refusal of Amazon to negotiate with shareholders instead is causing shareholders to lose money as a result.

I think people will be forgiven if they conclude that top brass is more interested in breaking the spirit of striking workers in Coventry than in establishing a productive workplace.”

Almost all union members voted in favor of industrial action over the last few weeks, according to the GMB.

Support for industrial action has also come from local MP Taiwo Owatemi and Derrick Palmer, the vice-president of the US Amazon Labour Union.

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