Amazon workers '˜suffer', says campaign group

SumOfUs has collected more than 69,000 signatures as part of a shareholder resolution which calls for a ‘vast improvement’ to the company’s working conditions.

Amazon’s Fulfilment Centre in Hemel, one of eight in the UK, is the size of six football pitches and employs more than 1,000 people.

Last summer, the Boundary Way base launched public tours, to anyone over the age of six. But SumOfUs says ‘behind closed doors’, Amazon workers suffer.

And it says Amazon is ‘trying to stop it from organising to protect its workers’ ahead of the annual shareholder meeting.

The petition reads: “If we can make our voice louder than Amazon’s, we can drown out its hollow claims about being an ethical employer, which are simply not true.”

A spokesman for the retail giant said the petition is on a global basis and does not reflect the environment at Hemel, where workers are paid ‘above the living wage’.