The online retail giant’s workers walked out of its logistic centers in Spain and Germany on a crucial day for sellers, marking the beginning of the Christmas shopping fever. The calls to boycott the US-based employer came from unions, demanding higher salaries better working conditions.

Around 620 employees at Amazon’s logistics facilities in the German towns of Bad Hersfeld and Rheinberg have chosen the annual Black Friday discount rampage to go on strike, the tech company reports. It insists that the customers haven not been impacted, however as the majority of staffers continued to work.

The 24-hour strike was staged by the country’s Verdi services union, which urged the US-based company’s employees to stop working until midnight Friday, fighting for better payment and a healthier work environment. The union has been demanding for years that Amazon should come to terms on a collective bargaining agreement with staffers, paying them according to the retail and mail-order tariff, which the company has rejected.

“We are entering the end of year spurt, the most stressful time for employees. Especially on a day like Black Friday, employees should be the central focus,” said the union’s Mechthild Middeke.

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​In Spain, 85 and 90 per cent of employees are said to be taking part in a strike at the company’s Spanish biggest storage center in San Fernando de Henares, which is planned to continue on Saturday, according to unions. However, Amazon refuted the reports, saying that most of their staffers remain at their workplace.

Union activists also protested UK’s Amazon warehouses at five places, including Milton Keynes and Peterborough, lambasting working conditions there, describing them as “inhumane.”