// Coventry Amazon workers have voted for another six months of pay strikes
// 99% of workers voted to extend industrial action, while the ecommerce giant’s staff from Coventry gathered in Parliament to meet MPs today
Amazon workers in Coventry have voted for six months more industrial action over pay, as the biggest walk out of the dispute so far occurred today.
Nearly 800 Coventry Amazon staff went on strike, while almost 500 joined the picket line, on the 19th day of industrial action.
99% of workers voted to extend industrial action, while the ecommerce giant’s workers from Coventry went to Parliament today to meet MPs.
GMB senior organizer Amanda Gearing also gave evidence on Amazon workers’ struggle to the Human Rights Joint Committee hearing into human rights at work.
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Gearing said: “The vote for six more months of strike action at Amazon Coventry shows these workers are in for the long haul.
Almost 500 people on the picket line is incredible.”
She continued: “Amazon call pull all the dirty tricks it wants; hiring extra staff to deny workers their right to a voice in the workplace is an obstacle, but it is not unsurmountable.
“These workers are angry, they know their rights and they will not go away.”
Amazon workers in Coventry recently withdrew the bid for formal union recognition and accused the company of playing “dirty tricks”.
Back in April, warehouse workers made a formal request to the independent central arbitration committee (CAC), following a series of strikes in a dispute over pay.
GMB membership jumped to 800, which it believed represented more than half of the warehouse staff – the usual threshold for statutory union recognition in a workplace.
However, once the union had made an official application to the CAC, Amazon claimed it had 2,700 workers.
It accused the tech giant of “flooding” the warehouse with up to 1,000 new employees since the strike action began.
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