Environmental activists blocked Amazon warehouses across the UK to pressure the e-commerce giant on one of the busiest days of the year to improve the working conditions of its employees and end business practices that harm the environment. done.
Extinction Rebellion members have targeted 13 Amazon UK fulfillment centers in an attempt to disrupt the company’s 50% delivery on Black Friday, which marks the unofficial start of the holiday shopping season.
Activists block the entrance to an Amazon warehouse in Tilbury, east of London, with an effigy of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos sitting atop a rocket.
At Amazon’s distribution center in Dunfermline, Scotland, about 20 members of Extinction Rebellion hung banners near the street that read “Make Amazon Pay” and chained each other. , prevented trucks from entering and prevented some from leaving.
The group demands that Amazon provide better working conditions, make clear environmental commitments, and pay its fair share of taxes.
“The action is intended to draw attention to Amazon’s business practices that exploit and destroy the environment, neglect workers’ rights in the name of profit, as well as waste Black Friday,” the group said.
Extinction Rebellion said the move was part of a larger international effort that is also targeting Amazon fulfillment centers in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands.
In Canada, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and Warehouse Workers Union will join forces with Resource Center Progressive International and an international coalition of workers, organizations in the technology sector, environmental activists and advocacy groups to protest in Brampton, Ont. Friday afternoon.
Amazon did not directly mention the protest in response to a request for comment, but said the company is taking its responsibilities “very seriously.”
“This includes our commitments to become carbon neutral by 2040 – 10 years before the Paris Agreement – to provide excellent wages and benefits in a safe and modern working environment and to support the thousands of small businesses Brits who visit our site sell,” the company said.