Workers at Amazon UK are to stage their first ever strike this month, as GMB members at the company’s Coventry warehouse are to walk out on 25 January.
Meanwhile, the online giant is planning thousands of redundancies across its global operations, with HR a prime target for job losses.
The dispute is centred on pay with the GMB union seeking £15 an hour for its members. It secured a yes vote in a ballot for industrial action on 16 December 2022.
Earlier last year the union narrowly missed the 50% turnout threshold in a strike vote, but last month the turnout was 63% with 98% of those backing strike action, marking the first time Amazon workers in the UK have voted to do so.
Although fewer than a quarter of the 1,400 or so staff employed at the plant were balloted, the GMB hailed it as a major victory, given Amazon’s overall hostility to trade unions.
Amanda Gearing, GMB senior organiser, said Amazon workers in Coventry were set to make history on 25 January, becoming the first ever Amazon workers in the UK to go on strike.
Industrial action
Minimum-service strike laws would allow dismissals
Amazon sets out objections to union drive
Hundreds of workers will walk out over Amazon’s 50p per hour pay offer, the GMB said.
“They’ve shown they’re willing to put themselves on the line to fighting for what’s right,” she said.
“People working for one of the most valuable companies in the world shouldn’t have to threaten strike action just to win a wage they can live on.”
Gearing said that the GMB urged Amazon UK bosses to give workers a proper pay rise and avoid industrial action altogether.
A spokesperson for Amazon said pay rates, depending on location, started at a minimum of between £10.50 and £11.45 per hour. These represented a 29% increase in the minimum hourly wage paid to Amazon employees since 2018.
“Employees are also offered comprehensive benefits that are worth thousands more – including private medical insurance, life assurance, subsidised meals and an employee discount, to name a few,” they added.
The internet shopping giant claimed the strike would have “zero impact” on customers and normal operations would continue because the Coventry site was not a fulfilment centre that directly serviced customer orders. Instead, its role was to provide stock to its UK centres.
Amazon warehouses in Germany, the company’s second most important market after the US, have seen a series of strikes over the past month with the union Verdi saying that pay hikes had lagged behind inflation.
“Colleagues are furious and don’t want to be taken for fools by a company that makes billions in profits,” a spokesperson for Verdi said.
Redundancies
Meanwhile, Amazon is planning to cut more than 18,000 jobs, the largest number in the firm’s history, in a bid to maximise profits. Employees affected by the cuts will be told on 18 January.
Amazon, which employs 1.5 million people globally, said jobs in Europe would be at risk, with most of the job losses coming from its consumer retail business and its HR division.
Chief executive Andy Jassy cited the “uncertain economy” for the cuts, saying it had “hired rapidly over several years.”
“We don’t take these decisions lightly or underestimate how much they might affect the lives of those who are impacted,” he said in a memo to staff.
He said the announcement had been brought forward due to one of the firm’s employees leaking the cuts externally.
“Companies that last a long time go through different phases. They’re not in heavy people expansion mode every year,” he added.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
In July 2022, Amazon announced a 4,000 role expansion in the UK, bringing staff numbers in the country up to about 75,000.
Latest HR job opportunities on Personnel Today
Browse more human resources jobs
