1000 people at rally+++++++ International alliance sets an example against Amazon boss Jeff Bezos+++++++++
On April 24, 2018, a total of one thousand people gathered to protest against inhumane working conditions and total surveillance of employees at the Springer Award ceremony for Amazon boss Jeff Bezos. The Make amazon Pay alliance had called on Jeff Bezos to confront these unreasonable demands on employees contained in his vision.
After the opening rally at the Oranienplatz, the audience went to the Axel Springer skyscraper under loud international slogans. The award ceremony was to take place there. The Springer publishing house wanted to honor the billion-dollar Bezos for its “visionary entrepreneurship”. The MAP campaign, the employees and the trade union ver.di did not want to let this cynicism pass. They confronted Bezos’ fully automated surveillance world with a vision of a more solidary society.
At the rally in front of the venue, workers from the various locations where Verdi had gone on strike to express their solidarity with the protest. The international guests also commented on the pitiful working conditions at the Amazon sites in their home countries. The Make amazon Pay Alliance also addressed the social foundations of Amazon’s increased exploitation in its speech.
The campaign speaker said: “We are not only concerned with a better salary, we are concerned with eliminating the conditions that result from the ever tighter clocking of work and the ever more extensive analysis of data. This happens not only in the factory, but also among consumers. Amazon concerns us all.”
The newly elected SPD leader Andrea Nahles received a special tribute for her performance. She was greeted with loud “Hartz4, this was you” shouts and had to stop her speech after 2 minutes.
Maria Reschka, the Alliance spokeswoman, said: “Andrea Nahles, former Minister of Employment of the Hartz 4 Party SPD, has massively promoted precarization in German society. Unfortunately, we were not able to give Jeff Bezos his feedback personally, but Andrea Nahles has now received hers in an appropriate form. Quite historic that an SPD leader gets so much headwind at a trade union demonstration”.
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