Activists in the UK, France and Germany are joining forces to take on Amazon over workers' rights and the level of tax the internet giant is paying. Activists say that 90% of Amazon's staff is on temporary contracts whereby they work very long shifts and are paid below the living wage, a concept that calculates how much people need to earn in order to not live in poverty. In the UK an activist group that cooperates with the trade union GMB has collected over 59,000 signatures asking Amazon to raise its wages and improve worker rights, demanding breaks longer than 15 minutes, an end to compulsory overtime after 10 hour shifts and the monitoring and timing of toilet breaks during working time in the online superstores' giant warehouses.
English: http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/protesters-fight-against-amazon-over-living-wage ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.