"‘To them, we are like robots. The things that make us human are ground out of you’: the inside story of a strike at Amazon", 29 July 20

BHX4, a state-of-the-art logistics hub boasting nine miles of conveyor belts and 120,000 sq metres of floor space, opened in 2018...

A few months into the pandemic, even as Amazon staff were being feted as “key workers”, their £2 an hour bonus pay was quietly withdrawn. With most employees inside the warehouse now back earning about £10 an hour before tax, a regular full-time shift pattern – four 10-hour stints a week – was becoming increasingly hard to live off...

An estimated 75% of the workers at BHX4, according to a GMB union survey, say they can’t afford to pay their bills; some have become trapped in cycles of high-interest debt. Last year, Amazon’s core UK division posted a profit of £222m and paid no corporation tax for the second year running. In that time, Zee and his colleagues received a real-terms pay cut of 8%.

By the summer of 2022, it wasn’t just staff in Coventry reaching breaking point, but Amazon employees across the country. For months, managers had been trying to placate a restless workforce by saying a significant pay rise was on the way, but when the details were finally announced in early August – an increase of only 35p-50p an hour – it provoked uproar. In Tilbury, Essex, hundreds of furious workers spontaneously left their posts to rally in the staff canteen. The following day, copycat protests erupted in Dartford, Chesterfield, Avonmouth, Hemel Hempstead – and Coventry...

Within a new world of precarious labour, Amazon’s workforce – fragmented by middleman recruitment agencies, shift patterns and multiple languages – has long been seen by traditional trade unions as the hardest to penetrate. Not only is Amazon fiercely opposed to them [...], but establishing a solid base of union members in any single facility is rendered almost impossible by the incredibly high staff turnover: at some centres, the worker replacement rate is estimated to be 150% a year. This level of churn isn’t a flaw in Amazon’s business model, but a central feature...

In recent weeks, the battle lines between Amazon and its workers have hardened. Having signed up more than 800 members in Coventry from what GMB believes is a workforce of 1,400 – more than the 50% needed to force the company into formally acknowledging and negotiating with it – the union submitted an application for statutory recognition, only to withdraw it again after Amazon claimed there were actually 2,700 employees at BHX4. (Union membership has since risen to over 1,000.) Workers say hundreds of new recruits have suddenly appeared in the warehouse, part of what GMB calls a concerted campaign of union-busting – a charge Amazon denies. Meanwhile, the Coventry workers have just voted to renew their strike mandate for another six months and their radicalism is proving infectious: new strike ballots are being planned by Amazon workers in two other sites in the Midlands: Mansfield and Rugeley...

Amazon says its wages and employee benefits are competitive and points to two recent national pay rises, each worth between 20p and 50p an hour to its lowest paid staff – and both awarded since worker unrest at Coventry began. In a statement, the company strongly denies its workers are subject to excessive surveillance or employment insecurity, or that it is hostile to trade unions. “Our people are supported by managers with daily face-to-face briefings and access to onsite HR teams, employee forums and site leadership teams,” it says. “We assess performance based on safe, achievable expectations and take into account time and tenure, peer performance, and adherence to safe work practices. If we think someone needs support, we offer coaching.

“Amazon respects our employees’ rights to join, or not to join, a union … We are enormously proud of our employees and the great work they do every day,” the company adds. “We place enormous value and emphasis on engaging with our employees directly and empowering them to pursue the career they want.” ...