The capitalist glorification of Black Friday in conditions of rising levels of poverty and inequality suffered a blow this year when Amazon workers and their supporters went on strike and protested against Amazon’s growing power and exploitation. 

On Friday, workers around the world created “Make Amazon Pay Day”. An international coalition of unions, equality and environmental groups staged a day of action. 

This year alone, Amazon has been exposed as:  

• Reporting up to £8.2 billion of its UK sales in Luxembourg to avoid UK taxes 
• Requiring almost 1,000 ambulance callouts to its UK fulfilment centres since 2018, including 178 callouts to its site in Tilbury, Essex, where a male employee died this month
• Sacking tech workers for speaking out in solidarity with warehouse workers’ unsafe conditions  
• Deploying an intrusive and pervasive system of workplace surveillance or its workers 
• Subjecting workers to oppressive working conditions with too few breaks, excessive and unreasonable productivity targets and an unsafe working environment. 

Amazon warehouse workers have taken part in work stoppages and protests across the globe, determined to secure fair wages, fair taxes, and accountability for Amazon’s impact on the planet.

In the UK Amazon warehouses are not unionised and workers have little protection. Amazon is hostile to trade unions. It refuses to give workers basic rights or to recognise a union. While billionaire Jeff Bezos can engage in the obscenity of a “space” flight vanity project costing millions of dollars, Amazon workers can barely make ends meet and are enduring appalling conditions. 

Amazon exemplifies the predatory nature of the capitalist system. Workers must make it pay.