For the second year in a row, Amazon workers are planning to strike on Prime Day. In 2018, Amazon warehouse workers in Germany, Poland, and Spain went on strike during Prime Day; this year, fulfillment center workers in Minnesota have planned a similar strike, in part due to Amazon’s recent announcement that it would begin free one-day shipping.


As Bloomberg reports:

Workers at a Shakopee, Minnesota, fulfillment center plan a six-hour work stoppage July 15, the first day of Prime Day. Amazon started the event five years ago, using deep discounts on televisions, toys and clothes to attract and retain Prime members, who pay subscription fees in exchange for free shipping and other perks. “Amazon is going to be telling one story about itself, which is they can ship a Kindle to your house in one day, isn’t that wonderful,” said William Stolz, one of the Shakopee employees organizing the strike. “We want to take the opportunity to talk about what it takes to make that work happen and put pressure on Amazon to protect us and provide safe, reliable jobs.”


Does this mean that shopping on Amazon during Prime Day is the equivalent of crossing the picket line? Maybe. If workers were picketing outside of a Whole Foods (owned by Amazon) or a Kohls (which accepts Amazon returns), many of us would avoid entering the store.

In that case, it would make sense to honor the strike by avoiding the Amazon website—and if we do, it probably means we shouldn’t watch any Amazon streaming content on Prime Day either. Or read any of the books on our Kindle. Or begin any sentence with “Hey Alexa.”

It would be hard to go as far as “refusing to visit any part of the internet powered by Amazon Web Services,” which is one of the more thorny aspects of this type of strike; when a company like Amazon is involved in so many different aspects of our lives, how do we effectively communicate our dissatisfaction with it?


I’ll be honest with you—I don’t plan on making any purchases on Amazon Prime Day, but that’s an easy choice for me to make because I’d already decided there wasn’t anything I wanted to buy (and I don’t like the sales pressure techniques Amazon uses on Prime Day). I can’t guarantee that I’ll stay away from every Amazon-owned thing, although now that I know about the strike I’ll probably be hesitant to open my Amazon Music app or watch an Amazon Prime video.

What about you?