In November 2020 Amazon and Assoespressi put their demands on the table for the renewal of the national collective labour agreement for logistics: 26 compulsory working Sundays for drivers, extension of the working week to 44 hours spread over 6 days instead of 5 (with only one day off), working holidays to be included in the normal rotation, the first 3 days of sick leave without pay, control of drivers through GPS and of warehouse workers through cameras (with the possibility of using the control for disciplinary purposes), increase in the number of temporary workers, temps and on-call workers, limitation of the right to strike.
USB has been contesting these positions for months, ever since the same identical employer demands were the cause of a clash during regional bargaining in Lazio, causing a large number of USB members to leave the CGIL, accused by the workers of wanting to approve the employers’ demands.
Now the CGIL, CISL and UIL have also become aware of the problem, in the obvious fear that all the workers will turn their backs on it for good. For their part, the proclamation of the strike is unforgivably late, but it is also the result of the mobilisations and protests of recent months that USB has organised inside and outside the gates of the multinational.
In 2020, Amazon’s turnover grew by 30%. For the workers, however, the only increase was in workloads: all this happened with the complicity of the concerted unions.
On 22 March there is a national strike in all Amazon plants for:
39 hours per week for all
Real wage increases
No reimbursement of damages and deductibles for drivers’ vehicles
No obsessive monitoring of workers through cameras and satellites
Stabilisation of the many precarious workers.
USB
