Amazon Prime Day Protests Planned By Immigrant Rights, Labor Leaders
SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- Amazon's Prime Day, an annual 48-hour shopping event that rakes in billions of dollars, starts Monday. But immigrant rights and labor leaders are using this high-profile shopping day to call attention to what they call "Amazon's bad behavior."
Several groups, including Jobs With Justice San Francisco, plan to protest outside Amazon's San Francisco office on Market Street. As ICE raids loom, protesters are demanding the company cut ties with the government agency.
"We're coming together to say it has to stop, its monopoly power and abuses, and that takes the form of abusing its warehouse workers, which many are immigrant, and sort of abusing the public in terms of using its technology to facilitate the targeting, the detention and the deportation and separation of families," said Kung Feng, executive director of Jobs with Justice San Francisco.
Feng will be among the protesters who plan to deliver a petition signed by more than 270,000 people as part of actions in nine cities across the country for Prime Day.
"Really, Amazon is a company that does a lot of things, and one of those is called Amazon Web Services, and another that it's developing is called facial recognition technology, and so together, a lot of those technology right now is being used by ICE," said Feng.
Warehouse workers in Minnesota are also planning a six-hour work stoppage and strike over working conditions.
Protests at Amazon's Seattle offices and in other major cities are expected Monday. KPIX 5 reached out to Amazon for comment but we have not yet heard back.
