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 Amazon workers at a warehouse in Coventry will strike over pay today, the first formal industrial action the e-commerce giant has faced in the UK.
The GMB union, which has organised the strike, expects about 300 staff out of just over 1,000 to take part.
GMB's Amanda Gearing has spoken to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She called on Amazon to come to the negotiating table.
"They should be listening to their workers, and their workers are asking them to give them better pay, terms and conditions and get around the table with the union."
The warehouse workers are asking for a pay rise to £15 an hour from £10.50 (they were given a 50p rise in August), she said.
"They just can’t live on that, I’m afraid – £15 would mean that they are able to pay their bills. We’ve got the biggest cost of living crisis in decades and people are having to choose between heating their homes and eating. It’s not good enough. Not from someone like Amazon that’s got billions and billions of pounds of profits during the pandemic."
She said workers at other Amazon warehouses in the UK may follow suit. The US company has 70,000 workers in the UK.
"Coventry might be the start of it but it won’t be the finish. We think people are watching on. We know there are workers at other centres that feel exactly the same and they are just waiting to see what happens."
Factory gate inflation in the UK has slowed further, according to the latest data from the Office for National Statistics. This will eventually feed into consumer price inflation.
Producer input prices (costs such as raw materials) rose by 16.5% in the year to December, down from 18% in the year to November, and 20.2% in the year to October. Factory gate prices rose at at an annual rate of 14.7% in December, down from 16.2% in November.
In more bad news for the embattled US tech sector, Microsoft gave a gloomy outlook last night despite better-than-expected results, and the shares gave up most of their 4% gains posted in after-hours trade. The electric carmaker Tesla will report fourth-quarter results later today.
Asian shares rose to seven-month highs but later gave up much of their gains, while the Australian dollar hit multi-month highs after inflation in the country rose to 7.8% in the fourth quarter from 7.3%.
In European markets, moves are muted in early trading. The FTSE 100 index is unchanged at 7,760, while Germany’s Dax and France’s CAC edged up 0.1%, Italy’s FTSE MiB slipped almost 0.1% and Spain’s Ibex is down 0.2%.
EasyJet shares jumped more than 7% after the airline reported strong bookings and said it would beat profit expectations for 2023.
The agenda
• 9am GMT: Germany Ifo business climate for January (forecast: 90.2)
• 12pm GMT: US MBA mortgage applications for week of 20 January
• 3pm GMT: Bank of Canada interest rate decision (forecast: 25bps rise to 4.5%)
We’ll be tracking all the main events throughout the day ... |
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What would a genuine plan for levelling up the north of England look like? Ask a German 
