Amazon workers in New York and Maryland are protesting for better wages

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Amazon workers in two states walked off the job early Wednesday to demand a raise. The company replaced 20-minute breaks with 15-minute breaks, but the workers wanted them back. As more employees band together to demand better working conditions, compensation, and representation, the actions are part of a wave of labor activism at Amazon.

The workers were employed at three warehouses in New York and Maryland. A group of workers from at least nine warehouses nationwide walked out of their jobs. The multi-warehouse strike in Chicago was called to demand better pay. Workers received a raise in the next month.

NEW: Amazon promised workers in Chicago full-time roles with a hiring bonus, extra pay for working Thanksgiving, and paid bereavement leave.



Every promise was broken.



So these courageous @AUchicagoland workers led the first-ever walkouts coordinated across multiple warehouses. pic.twitter.com/NsMMK0NFn3

— More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) January 11, 2022

According to Vice and a reporter from the Huffington Post, the workers striking this morning in DC make under $17 an hour and work 10 hours a day between 1AM and noon.

It wouldn't be the first time that the raise is being fought for at Amazon. In April of 2021, the company announced that 500,000 workers would get a pay raise. The raises came after a union drive at Amazon's facility.

There has been a lot of attention on the labor organization at Amazon. In Alabama and New York, the union elections are still going on despite the fact that the National Labor Relations Board decided that the company had interfered with the process. There are two separate union votes happening at the Staten Island facilities, one of which is scheduled to take place on March 25th.

The workers protested the load Amazon places on them and the speed it expects them to work at. A worker was fired for using too much time off after the death of a family member. Workers say that Amazon is hurting them physically and mentally by increasing the rate at which they are expected to work, measuring humans by efficiency standards set by machines.

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Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, told The Verge in an email that the company was in response to the walk out.

We’re proud to offer industry leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity for all to grow within the company. While there are many established ways of ensuring we hear the opinions of our employees inside our business, we also respect the right for some to make their opinions known externally.

One Amazon worker told Vice that theNordstrom warehouse across the street pays $19 an hour. The average wage for warehouse workers in the area goes down over the course of two years when Amazon opens a warehouse in the area. Amazon said the conclusions were false.

An additional context was added to the statement from the Amazon spokesman.