Amazon factory employees are planning Prime Day strikes in Minnesota
Amazon workers on a Shakopee, Minnesota stock chart to strike for six hours during Prime Day to demand safer working conditions and secure jobs. According to Bloomberg workers over two shifts will leave the warehouse and protest outside the facility; They will also join some engineers from the Amazon employees for the Climate Justice group who plan to fly in to support the strike.
There have been a number of strikes on the Amazon store on major shopping days, such as Black Friday, but These protests have been in Europe, where trade unions are much stronger. Protests in the US have been far more limited, but there has been an increasing movement in this department store in particular. A group of Somali-American workers left the Shakopee warehouse in December and then again in March, demanding that the company release allowances during Ramadan and allow room for prayer.
Amazon allegedly made these changes, but workers are asking Amazon to do more to guarantee their employment and security. Bloomberg says they ask Amazon to convert multiple temp jobs to full-time jobs and that the company permanently reduces allowances that they describe as uncertain. Amazon regularly burns employees who fail to meet challenging quotas, which workers often have to move quickly and precisely throughout the shift to do so.
Amazon told Bloomberg that it will "support people" who are not now their quotes with "dedicated coaching to help them improve." It said, on average, 90 percent of the employees at the Shakopee warehouse are full time.
By beating next Monday, July 15, the first day of Amazon's Prime Day event, workers will disturb Amazon on one of the company's busiest shopping days. Amazon created Prime Day in 2015 as a way to drive sales over what would otherwise be a slower month. It has been successful enough that other companies have begun to offer their own sales in response to Amazon's finished holiday, knowing that people will shop and look for offers.