UK Amazon workers to strike for six days in April

LONDON (Reuters) -Amazon workers at a warehouse in central England are to hold six more days of strikes in April in a dispute over pay, a statement from the GMB trade union said on Friday.

GMB said more than 560 workers at the warehouse in Coventry would walk out on April 16-18 and April 21-23. Workers at the site staged the first strike at the U.S. tech company’s operations in Britain in January, followed by a further seven days in February and March.

“Six further days of strike action in Coventry is a clear statement from our members they are worth more; they will not accept a pay rise of pennies from one of the world’s wealthiest corporations,” Amanda Gearing, GMB Senior Organiser, said in a statement.

The union said on Friday it would also begin balloting workers at five fulfillment centres across central England for industrial action.

Amazon, which employs 75,000 people across the UK, said its minimum pay had risen by 10% over the past seven months.

“We regularly review our pay to ensure we offer competitive wages, and we recently announced another increase for our UK teams,” the company’s UK unit said in an emailed statement.

(Reporting by Sarah Young and Kylie MacLellan; editing by William James and Michael Holden)