In over 40 countries, workers in Amazon warehouses staged walkouts for Black Friday and Cyber Monday events, the biggest days of the year for online sales.

In the United States and United Kingdom, as well as Australia, Japan, India, and several European countries, workers have launched a campaign to "Make Amazon Pay," as a way of demanding better working conditions and compensation.

The campaign website states: “For workers and consumers, the price of everything is going up. And for everyone, the global temperature is rising and our planet is under stress. But instead of supporting its workers, communities and the planet, Amazon is squeezing every last drop it can.”

The campaign is also calling on Amazon to pay its share of global income taxes, which it has not paid in Europe since 2020 and has never paid in the United States.

As a cost-of-living crisis continues in the U.K., workers have demanded a pay increase from £10.50 to £15 an hour, the equivalent of $12.65 to $18.07 in USD. Workers in Germany report global inflation as another motivator for their strikes, as minimum wage employees have been hit particularly hard.

Amazon Services U.K. employs around 75,000 people, with the total number of Amazon workers in the country at roughly 150,000. Members of the U.K.'s GMB, a general trade union which has more than 460,000 members, staged protests at several Amazon warehouses and fulfillment centers.

At a rally in Coventry, senior organizer at the GMB Amanda Gearing said that Amazon's success is contingent on its employees.

“We are here today to tell Amazon [that] if you want to keep your empire going, talk to GMB to improve the pay and conditions of workers," she said via The Guardian. "Amazon workers are overworked, underpaid and they have had enough.”

Workers in the United States staged a rally outside of Jeff Bezos' penthouse in Manhattan, as well as in front of several Whole Foods and warehouses throughout the Tri-State Area. Many also cited grievances about the company's role in exacerbating climate change.

Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union in the United States, told Aljazeerathat Amazon's treatment of workers is inhumane.

“Amazon’s business model is to treat people like robots," he said. “They are managed by an algorithm, they are fired by text messages on their phone, people are afraid to go to the bathroom because they might lose their jobs if they fail to meet their productivity quota."

He continued: "Amazon workers, all over the world, no matter which country they live and work, are experiencing the same dehumanizing mistreatment from Amazon."