Retail giant Amazon has awarded a pay deal worth nearly 10% to its tens of thousands of UK employees, just weeks after narrowly winning a union recognition vote at a key facility.
The online giant said the rise would raise minimum pay rates for warehouse staff and delivery drivers by 9.8% to between £13.50 and £14.50 an hour. Those employees with at least three years’ service would receive a minimum of between £13.75 and £14.75 an hour, it said.
In July Amazon staff at Coventry narrowly rejected a union recognition ballot with 49.5% of workers voted in favour of the GMB union, while 50.5% voted against. GMB members at Amazon Coventry have taken almost 40 days of strike action in their fight for £15 per hour and union recognition over the past 18 months.
Amazon union membership
GMB launches legal action against Amazon ‘anti-union’ tactics
GMB organiser Rachel Fagan stated on the union’s website: “This is too little, too late from Amazon bosses who have been forced to act by worker’s industrial action.
“Amazon’s reputation is in the gutter over its treatment of its own workers and now company bosses are trying to plaster over the facts. Unsafe working conditions, low pay and excessive surveillance blight the lives of Amazon workers every single day.”
An Amazon spokesperson stated “we are increasing our minimum starting pay for all frontline employees to the equivalent of more than £28,000 a year and we continue to offer industry-leading benefits from day one.”
Amazon globally maintains a direct relationship with staff rather than pursue relations with unions, but the Labour government has promised to introduce legislation making it easier for trade unions to win recognition, as part of its Make Work Pay overhaul of workers’ rights.
In June, 50 institutional investors signed a letter expressing concerns over Amazon’s alleged response to trade union membership at its Coventry fulfilment centre, and urging the online retailer to prove it is adhering to its own human rights principles around freedom of association.
Sustainable investment firm CCLA Investment Management and 50 cosignatories sent the letter stating that they believe Amazon’s alleged actions in response to workers trying to organise at Coventry are misaligned with the company’s stated approach to human rights.
They said they were concerned that Amazon’s conduct towards employees seeking to unionise contradicts its stated commitment to respect employees’ fundamental rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining as articulated in the UN Global Principles for Business and Human Rights, and the International Labour Organisation’s Declaration and Core Conventions.
In France earlier this year, the company was fined after excessive employee monitoring.
Latest HR job opportunities on Personnel Today
Browse more human resources jobs
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
Latest HR job opportunities on Personnel Today
Browse more human resources jobs
