Amazon Workers Plan to Strike During Prime Day Sale Over Working Conditions

When consumers flock to Amazon next week to capitalize on the tech giant’s biggest sale of the year, many of the company’s warehouse workers plan to generate a different kind of buzz.

Amazon workers in Minnesota are organizing a strike during Prime Day, the retailer’s two-day shopping event, to protest what they allege are dangerous productivity quotas and a refusal to convert more temporary workers into employees, Bloomberg first reported.

The planned work stoppage comes as Amazon draws increasing attention in Washington and on the presidential campaign trail in connection with issues tied to corporate taxation, market competition and labor.

Last month, The Washington Post reported that the company could face heightened antitrust scrutiny after U.S. regulators agreed to give the Federal Trade Commission greater supervision over Amazon’s business practices. And this year, presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called for the breakup of Amazon and other tech companies that she says have grown too big and powerful. Other Democratic candidates for president have seized on tech-industry criticism, highlighting concerns over monopoly power and corporate concentration.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.

Workers at a fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, plan to strike for six hours across two shifts on July 15, according to the report. They also plan to rally outside the facility. The workers, many of them Muslim immigrants from East Africa, have previously protested to call attention to their working conditions. They were able to spur some changes last year, the report said, including the easing of work quotas during the month of Ramadan and gaining dedicated space at work to pray.

Last year, thousands of Amazon workers in Europe held a strike on Prime Day calling for better working conditions, health benefits and pay. Created five years ago, Prime Day has grown into a major discount event, garnering billions of dollars in sales for the retailer and prompting competitors such as Target to launch online summer sales of their own. Target’s event, dubbed Deal Days, will fall on the same two-day period as Amazon’s.

Protest organizers have tried to use the summer sale to underscore the labor conditions at the company valued at close to 1 trillion dollars. Employees in the United States have also attempted to unionize for years, in addition to calling for backup day-care benefits and higher wages. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., another White House contender, recently called on the company to improve its work environment after a report from the Daily Beast that detailed dozens of 911 calls made from Amazon facilities.

A vocal critic of the company, Sanders proposed legislation last year that would force large employers such as Amazon to cover the cost of food stamps and other federal assistance given to its employees. But after the introduction of the bill, named the “Stop BEZOS Act,” Amazon announced it would raise its minimum wage to $15 per hour.