70 young TikTok influencers demand: $30 per hour, 1 ½ hours break time and better wages for Amazon employees

Solidarity with Amazon workers on TikTok: More than 70 young and influential TikTok influencers refuse to advertise for Amazon on their social media channels. They will not do so until Amazon drastically improves working conditions for employees. Furthermore they demand that the online giant stops their fight against unions.

Put people over (Amazon) Prime! Or shorter “People over Prime”- that is the name of the campaign that more than 70 creative TikTokers have launched together. They want to push the online giant Amazon to better working conditions for its employees.

Many young “influencers” have built up their own “business” in recent years with their social media channels. In addition to creative content, they also host paid advertisements. Among other things, they advertise products sold by the online retailer. But now more than 70 influencers published an open letter to Amazon, in which they massively criticize the company.

“DEAR AMAZON,
AMAZON’S WIDESPREAD MISTREATMENT OF THEIR WORKERS AND BLATANT USE OF UNION BUSTING TACTICS WILL NO LONGER BE TOLERATED BY THE TIKTOK COMMUNITY OR TIKTOK CREATORS. UNTIL THE FOLLOWING DEMANDS – SET BY THE AMAZON LABOR UNION FROM JFK8 AND LDJ5 WAREHOUSES – ARE MET, WE WILL REFUSE TO MONETIZE OUR PLATFORMS FOR AMAZON, INCLUDING ALL DIRECT AMAZON SPONSORSHIPS AND USAGE OF AMAZON’S STOREFRONT”, THE OPEN LETTER READS.”

MORE BREAKS, BETTER WORKING CONDITIONS AND HIGHER WAGES DEMANDED

The TikTok collective is demanding better working conditions for Amazon employees. In only very few days 51 million people joined the collective in solidarity. Specifically, they want one-hour lunch breaks and two half-hour breaks spread throughout the workday. They are also demanding better sick leave options. In the U.S., where Amazon operates countless package stores, paid sick leave is sometimes not even an option. And they demand the elimination of the inhumane productivity rates by which Amazon fired employees for not achieving them.

UNIONS ARE BOOMING

In addition, the TikTok collective wants Amazon to immediately stop inciting its employees against unionization. The collective calls itself “Gen-Z for Change” and that’s exactly what they want: Change!

In April of this year, the first union in Amazon’s 28-year history was formed at a New York parcel center – a breakthrough for Amazon employees there. What many people don’t know: Amazon used to send employees to mandatory “anti-union meetings”. There the raise sentiments about the perceived disadvantages of unions.

Furthermore, Amazon has threatened those employees with expulsion or lower pay if they advocate for the formation of a union. The more than 70 TikTokers no longer want to tolerate such practices:

“As long as no changes happen on the part of Amazon, we will stop Amazon from using one of the largest social media platforms in the world for marketing purposes,” the Influencers write.

Only when Amazon mets those requirements, the TikTok collective will make their social media channels available for Amazon advertizements.

Author: Romana Greiner