Weekly shifts of up to 60 hours only for minimum wage, broken legs and backs and lack of bathrooms at the large facility there were several complaints from Amazon workers in the English city of Coventry, which staged the largest strike against the giant in Great Britain.

After the first and historic strike on January 25, a group of nearly 500 employees affiliated with the GMB union have increased the pressure with other force measures from Monday to Friday in protest of their wages and working conditions they perceive as abusive.

As the snow finally gave way to sun, the strikers participated in a picket line this Tuesday morning, which managed to stop several company trucks with merchandise from entering. Afternoons will be replaced by night shifts, with a pattern that will be repeated for five days.

THE STRUGGLE FOR UNION RECOGNITION

While some of them tried to persuade co-workers who had come to work to join the strike, others warmed around a campfire or drank GMB’s hot tea.

“Since the beginning of the dispute, we have doubled the number of (unionized) members in this distribution center”one of the largest in the country with the size of eight football fields, union spokesman Tom Rigby told EFE.

Rigby explained that, in addition to asking for an increase from 10.5 pounds (11.8 euros) per hour to 15 pounds (17 euros), the aim was to recruit more than half of the factory staff – 2,000 people according to management, though the number is disputed – to legally compel Amazon to accept union representation and collective bargaining.

In April 2022, the New York warehouse of an American multinational company became the first to earn this recognition in the United States, in what it is considered a victory of workers over the company, Known for his anti-union stance.

STRESS AND DISEASE

Emilia Gradinaru, a 47-year-old Romanian who has worked at the Coventry center since it opened in 2018, is one of the many employees who have complained about the toll it has caused. “safety shoes” they are required to wear.

As well as his hard legs, he had constant back pain, due to the weight he had to carry without being able to sit down during his 10 hour shift. He is one of those who works 60 hours a week instead of 40to survive in the face of rising costs of living.

“We are humans, not robots,” he told EFE, echoing one of the strike slogans, to explain the control and constant rebuke of those their superiors targeted.

“They always ask us to do more, it’s never enough. I lost my health and I saw no light today,” added Justyna Nowak, 35 from Poland.

Facing widespread criticism of overtargeting, an Amazon spokesperson told EFE that “performance metrics are evaluated regularly and benchmarked based on actual employee performance history.”

“We look at their performance and then we measure that. always with safety in mind“, he explained.

Another common complaint among the strikers is the lack of toilets in facilities with a conveyor belt of more than 14 kilometers, which has in some cases led to, according to what they say, urinating in bottles.

Instead, the company says that “all employees have easy access to sanitation facilitieswho are within walking distance of their place of work, and can use the bathroom when necessary.”

Several workers alerted EFE to incidents of injuries and health problems, including miscarriages and fainting spells, for which management was reluctant to call an ambulance, perhaps so as not to tarnish their image.

“I have two knee prostheses and one day I hurt myself and I couldn’t move. Instead of taking me to an emergency hospital, they made me call my husband to pick me up,” said Marie Connelly, 57.

An Amazon spokesperson said that “keeping our employees safe is our number one priority and the most important thing we do.”

“We are working closely with health and safety experts, conducting thousands of inspections of our buildings, and are actively searching people’s opinions on how we can improve their wellbeing at work“, he stated.

Whether it’s a lack of will or a lack of communication, it seems the employees demonstrating this week outside the Coventry factory don’t feel like they’re being heard.