Amazon is reshaping capitalism in the 21st century. It has a market capitalisation of over $2 trillion. Its founder, Jeff Bezos, is the world’s third richest man, with over $220 billion. Its power to break the bodies of its workers, change our laws, undermine our public realm, wreck our planet and support war is immense. Amazon is everywhere, and can travel anywhere.

But Amazon’s power is not infinite. Just as it moves from country to country to avoid taxes, warehouse to warehouse to weaken strikes, we too, are organising everywhere. At every stage of abuse along its global supply chain, Amazon now faces resistance. Today, in over 30 countries on every inhabited continent, this resistance unites, as workers and citizens strike and protest to Make Amazon Pay. Together, we are turning Black Friday into Make Amazon Pay Day.

There is much to resist. One US Senate study found that almost 45 percent of Amazon warehouse workers were injured on the job during the holiday season. In Bangladesh, Amazon still refuses to sign the Safety Accords negotiated after the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse that killed over a thousand garment workers, as garment workers’ demand for a minimum monthly wage of $207 remains unmet.

The company claims to care about the climate and made a much-vaunted net zero commitment in 2019. Since then emissions have risen by over a third. Amazon has higher emissions than over 160 countries.

These costs to our planet won’t be covered by Amazon’s tax returns. The company’s lawyers and accountants are so skilled at booking profits in different jurisdictions and dodging taxes that Amazon’s effective tax rate is tiny. In a more egregious example, the company paid no corporation tax in Europe in 2020 on sales of over 44 billion euros.

Amazon's impunity is gravest in its crimes against the Palestinians — Amazon web services provides critical support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its occupation of the West Bank. Amazon hopes to make billions from Black Friday bargains — funnelling our money to its $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing to the Israeli Defence Forces through the so-called “Project Nimbus.”

Today, over 80 organisations, spearheaded by UNI Global Union and Progressive International, have come together under the banner of Make Amazon Pay — for the fifth consecutive year. On each of the past five Black Fridays — a major shopping day at the end of November — globally coordinated strikes and protests have hit Amazon, growing in numbers and gaining in strength.

This year, hundreds of actions are taking place in over thirty countries. Highlights include:

• A major strike in Germany, with thousands of warehouse workers walking off the job in key warehouses including Bad Hersfeld, Graben, Dortmund Werne, Leipzig, Koblenz, and Rheinberg;
• In France, Attac (The Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen’s Action) is leading a wave of direct action in towns and cities across the country;
• In India, hundreds of Amazon workers rallied in New Delhi against unsafe working conditions, especially following last summer’s extreme heatwave, as warehouse and gig workers take action in twelve cities around the country;
• In Bangladesh, garment workers take to the streets, demanding fair treatment from Amazon’s suppliers;
• In Atlanta, USA, Amazon drivers at the company’s DGT8 facility join the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) and demand union recognition with a “March on the Boss”;
• In Italy, Amazon workers are striking as part of the country’s general strike;
• In Onda, Spain, 500 workers strike for better pay;
• In Tokyo, Japan, activists protest the exploitation of drivers in front of Amazon’s HQ;
• In four cities in South Africa, activists and Indigenous leaders protest Amazon’s complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza and its desecration of Indigenous land in South Africa;
• In London, the United Kingdom, workers and activists protest at Amazon’s HQ to take a stand against Amazon’s abuse of its workers, its tax dodging, its destruction of our environment and powering of the Israeli war machine;
• In Istanbul, Turkey, workers and trade unionists protest in front of Amazon’s office;
• In Luxembourg, a coalition of unions, tax justice and environmental organisations protest on a central square to call out Amazon’s tax avoidance;
• In Bogota, Colombia, trade unionists protest at an Amazon call centre;
• Brick-and-mortars booksellers internationally call out Amazon’s anti-competitive practices;
• Thousands join the Progressive International, No Tech for Apartheid and the BDS Movement to say “Not a Dime for Genocide”, with Black Friday this year falling on International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. You can take and share the pledge here.

Each action spurs the next one, building the strength — and most importantly the confidence — of workers around that world to act on one simple truth: when we fight, we win.

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