An online campaign asking Amazon's chief executive, Jeff Bezos, to pay the agency staff working for Amazon UK the living wage has received more than 40,000 signatories in two days.

Launched on Change.org, the petition featured an image of workers in a warehouse with the caption, "Amazon UK: all we want for Christmas is a fair wage".

Within the description of the petition, it said the 15,000 workers the e-commerce company has employed for the holiday rush "won't earn enough to buy the bare essentials of life".

Emily Kenway, who works at ShareAction and started the petition, told the Guardian that she launched the campaign to urge people to rethink their position on the company. She added that the company's tax affairs are a very different issue from not paying staff an adequate salary.

"It is a company that has really permeated all of our lives – and a lot of my friends and family are buying their Christmas presents from there – but Amazon aren't paying the people who are packing them enough to live off," she said.

"For a lot of people the tax issue [the company paid £3.2m in corporation tax last year] doesn't stop them buying from Amazon. But this is real people's lives. When you hear about people who are feeling really insecure [about their jobs], and aren't treated properly, that really hits home a lot more and makes you think."

Referring to an undercover report by the Observer, Kenway claimed in the petition that workers within the warehouse are unfairly treated, claiming that the following policies "demean its workers":

• A sack-if-you're-sick policy that sees you turfed out if you take three sick breaks in a three-month period

• Giving workers 15-minute breaks that start wherever they are in the giant warehouses

• 10-hour days

• Compulsory overtime

• Monitoring and timing toilet breaks

• Half-a-point if you're one minute late or more (three points and you're out)

• Paying the minimum wage or just above it, when it could well afford to pay the living wage

• A "performance console" that tracks and logs workers' activities so they can be released if their "pick rate" is too slow

Mike Hobson, a signatory, claimed that better paid workers were more productive. He wrote: "Before retirement, I ran supply chain companies that relied upon warehouse pickers. Customers were always served best and the operation improved by the input and enthusiasm of the workforce.

"When they are paid at least the living wage, the pickers feel valued and draconian punishments for lateness etc are then not needed."

In response to a request for comment, an Amazon spokesperson sent the Guardian a link to details of working arrangements at their fulfilment centres at amazon.co.uk/fcpractices.

The page states that of 20 fulfilment centres across Europe, eight are based in the UK. New members of staff receive a median wage of £7.05 and this tends to increase to £8.02 after 24 months, according to the page.

Permanent staff are also offered stock grants, which have added an average 12% to base pay.

It states that seasonal employees earn 90% of the starting wage of Amazon's permanent staff, while 95% of seasonal employees also work a 40-hour week.

Criticised again

This isn't the first time that Amazon have been criticised for their warehouse policy.

One of Britain's leading experts on stress at work claimed that conditions at an Amazon warehouse could cause "mental and physical illness" after being shown undercover filming for a Panorama investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse.

Carole Cadwalladr, a features writer for the Observer, also spent a week undercover working at an Amazon warehouse and reported that agency workers get paid £6.50 an hour - 19p above the minimum wage - and shifts are 10.5 hours long.

AllThingsD reported on Tuesday that an employee working at an Amazon fulfilment centre in the US died after being crushed by a piece of equipment. Although Amazon owns the facility, the operations are run by a third-party logistics firm, Genco.

• What's it like to work at Amazon? Read about Carole Cadwalladr's experience