wind of revolt among employees in the United States

This may be a small revolution at the e-commerce giant Amazon. In the United States, the 5,600 employees of a huge warehouse located in Alabama are preparing to form a union. This would be a first since Amazon does not tolerate them in the United States. In Italy, more than 9,000 employees went on strike for 24 hours, or 75% of employees, according to the unions. Even more across the country say they are exhausted and outraged. “Amazon makes billions of profits around the world, and at the same time refuses to redistribute part of its profits to its employees”, pointe Marino Masucci, general secretary of the Italian trade union CISL, transport branch.

“Normally we make 80, up to 100 deliveries per day. But at the moment, some colleagues have had to chain up to 300 deliveries in a single day”, says a delivery man. The wave of protest therefore does not spare the other side of the Atlantic.
In the warehouse in Alabama, employees will take advantage of a local law to vote on March 29 on the creation of a union. Here again, it is the working conditions that are denounced. “We are treated like prisoners who are just there to do a job”, denounces Jennifer Bates, Amazon employee in Bessmer (Alabama, United States). The company, for its part, is deploying campaigns to vote “no” to the creation of the union.

– Figures for participation in Italian strikes provided by the unions to our team in the Rome office: Participation reached “75% on average, with peaks of 90% in certain areas,” assured the unions Cgil, Cisl and Uil, at the origin of this social movement.
– Elements of report and interview in Alabama collected by our partner channel CBS (in contract with france tv)
– Amazon internal video: We have verified the origin of this video. It was distributed in 2018 by a collective of workers “Whole worker”, collectives Amazon and Whole Foods (same company) but which is therefore not a union (since the company does not yet have one)