Thousands of Amazon workers in 15 countries, including call center workers, warehouse workers, and garment makers, to stage coordinated Black Friday protests
The day of action includes strikes and protests from garment manufacturers in Bangladesh to call center workers in the Philippines … Tweets: @jason_koebler Tweets: Jason Koebler / @jason_koebler : NEW: Thousands of Amazon workers in 12 countries are protesting on Black Friday, from garment manufacturers and call center employees to warehouse workers all over. Biggest coordinated international labor action thus far https://www.vice.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This is the third straight Black Friday of Amazon labor actions, but the scope has changed each year. In 2017, workers struck at the company's main Italian distribution hub and six German centers over pay; in 2018, walkouts spread to warehouses in the UK, Germany and Spain, with roughly 90% participation at a Madrid depot.
First-order effects
- Amazon's peak shopping-day operations now face simultaneous disruption across 15 countries, and for the first time the action reaches beyond its own facilities to contract garment manufacturers in Bangladesh and call center employees in the Philippines.
Second-order effects
- By pulling suppliers' workers into the same day of action, organizers turn Amazon's outsourced supply chain into a bargaining surface — pressure that lands on Bangladeshi garment factories and Philippine call center operators as much as on Amazon itself.
Third-order effects
- If each year's action is larger than the last, Black Friday hardens into an annual global referendum on Amazon's labor practices, with coordination expanding from European warehouses toward the full geographic span of its workforce.
The trend: Amazon's Black Friday labor protests are scaling from isolated European warehouse walkouts into a coordinated international action spanning the company's entire supply chain.