Make Amazon Pay Protests start with Black Friday Deals

Make Amazon Pay, a combination of unions, nongovernmental organisations, and grassroots groups, is holding a day of strikes and protests across twenty nations on Black Friday, asking that Amazon Pay a livable wage, taxes, and reparations for its environmental effect. The action takes place on the planet, which is the level of Amazon’s operations. While the tech and logistics firm is headquartered in the United States, it has a global workforce of 1.3 million employees, which does not include the numerous workers who are hired through subcontractors. Resistance to Amazon must also cross borders.

Last year, the Make Amazon Pay coalition began with a Black Friday day of action, but this year, the organization’s reach will be far greater, with protests and strikes planned in twenty different countries. The day of action will include “oil refineries, factories, warehouses, data centres, and corporate offices,” according to the campaign, underscoring Amazon’s far-reaching, less-visible arms. For example, Amazon Web Services (AWS) generates the majority of the company’s earnings and works with both the fossil fuel and military industries, yet its data centres are significantly less visible than its warehousing and delivery operations. Make Amazon Pay seeks to change that with its protests outside major oil refineries.

“These groups represent a variety of interests,” Kelly Nantel, Amazon’s director of national media relations, said Motherboard, which first reported on the Black Friday protests. Indeed, that is the point. The initiatives span Amazon’s supply chain, from garment workers in Bangladesh and Cambodia to delivery drivers in Italy, as well as the River Club development site in Cape Town, South Africa, where Amazon plans to establish Africa’s Amazon headquarters.