Ama­zon ware­house work­ers went on strike for the first time in Britain on Wednes­day be­cause of a dis­pute over pay and work­ing con­di­tions, adding to a wave of in­dus­tri­al labour ac­tion across the coun­try fu­elled by the soar­ing cost of liv­ing.

Union mem­bers vot­ed to walk off the job for one day at the e-com­merce gi­ant’s ful­fil­ment cen­tre in Coven­try, a city about 100 miles (160 kilo­me­tres) north­west of Lon­don near Birm­ing­ham.

Aman­da Gear­ing, a se­nior or­ga­niz­er with the GMB union, said Ama­zon staff who worked through tough con­di­tions dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic are just “try­ing to get de­cent pay.” An­oth­er big is­sue is per­for­mance tar­gets set by an al­go­rithm that piles ex­tra pres­sure on work­ers, she said.

The union is fight­ing for a big­ger pay raise than the com­pa­ny’s of­fer, which it says amounts to an ex­tra 50 pence (61 cents) an hour.

Ama­zon, which op­er­ates 30 ful­fil­ment cen­tres in the Unit­ed King­dom, said 2,000 work­ers are em­ployed at the Coven­try fa­cil­i­ty. The union says 98% of those who took part in the vote de­cid­ed to strike, and Ama­zon said that amounts to on­ly 178 work­ers.

The com­pa­ny said it is of­fer­ing “com­pet­i­tive pay” start­ing at 10.50 to 11.45 pounds an hour, de­pend­ing on lo­ca­tion. Ama­zon says that is a 29% in­crease in the min­i­mum hourly wage for em­ploy­ees since 2018.

Busi­ness at Seat­tle-based Ama­zon boomed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic but, like oth­er tech com­pa­nies, it has been re­vers­ing re­cent ex­pan­sions as it faces eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty. This month, it an­nounced 18,000 lay­offs.

Ama­zon staff are the lat­est group of British work­ers to join the pick­et lines as high food and en­er­gy prices dri­ve the high­est in­fla­tion in decades. Nurs­es, am­bu­lance work­ers, train dri­vers, bor­der staff, dri­ving in­struc­tors, bus dri­vers, teach­ers and postal work­ers have all walked off their jobs in re­cent months to de­mand high­er pay amid the cost-of-liv­ing cri­sis.

Ama­zon rou­tine­ly faces protests and walk­outs from work­ers who want high­er wages and bet­ter work­ing con­di­tions, in­clud­ing else­where in Eu­rope, such as Spain and Ger­many.

Last year on Black Fri­day, a coali­tion of unions and ad­vo­ca­cy groups co­or­di­nat­ed walk­outs in more than 30 coun­tries un­der a cam­paign called “Make Ama­zon Pay.” Or­ga­niz­ers said they want­ed the com­pa­ny to boost pay for hourly work­ers, ex­tend sick leave and end its ef­fort to fend off union­iza­tion, among oth­er things.

In Oc­to­ber, the com­pa­ny sus­pend­ed dozens of work­ers at a New York ware­house af­ter many of them staged a protest and re­fused to re­turn to their shifts fol­low­ing a trash com­pactor fire. —LON­DON (AP)

___

Sto­ry by KELVIN CHAN | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. AP Busi­ness Writer Haleluya Hadero in New York con­tributed to this re­port.