“It is a claim of purchasing power. » Four days before a presidential election in which this theme takes center stage at the end of the campaign, Alain Jeault, of the CGT, thus summarizes the mobilization underway at Amazon. From Sunday April 3 to Tuesday April 5, striking employees stopped work in the eight large French warehouses of the e-commerce leader. Stake ? The 3% salary increase proposed by Amazon and judged “ridiculous” by the united front of the trade unions. Due to rising prices, CGT, Sud, CFDT, CAT and CFE-CGC (executives) are asking for a 5% increase. And promised Wednesday for the days to come other walkouts “surprise”, in order to keep the pressure on until April 14, the date of the next meeting of the mandatory annual negotiations.
Management was trying to put it into perspective: the movement did not have “impact on the daily activity of the sites”, noted the company, pointing out that “the vast majority” of the 12,400 employees in its logistics warehouses continued the work. As for the unions, they counted 1,200 to 1,500 strikers.
Beyond the figures, the employee representatives say that they themselves have been ” surprised ” the spontaneity and dynamism of the mobilization. Party Sunday afternoon from the warehouse of Chalons-sur-Saône (Saône-et-Loire), the strike affected Monday morning, following the call of the inter-union, all the distribution centers. Until the last giant warehouse opened in August 2021 in Metz: in this site with high staff turnover, the strikers were unable to organize a picket outside the building as in the other warehouses, but Sandra Holota, from the CGT, was delighted to see two young people aged 20 and 22 mobilize in its night team. “It’s their first job. But they don’t understand why they should live worse this year than last, says this old woman from the Boves site, near Amiens. There, it has always been difficult to strike. But this time people are calling us saying they want to stop work. »
“It’s heating up at Amazon”, moreover headlined Tuesday in “one” the Picard mail. “Employees tell us that they are striking for the first time”, also tells Morgane Boulard, of the CFDT Amazon. Alain Jeault recounts the commitment of ” youth “, sometimes “young parents”, among the “picking” and “packing” teams, responsible for filling or packing the packages of the online sales giant. “We often hear that young people are not mobilizing but, in recent days, some have told us that they can no longer do so financially”, says the chosen one.
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