Amazon is a multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming and artificial intelligence. With more than 1.5 million employees worldwide, it is the second largest private employer globally.
Reason for engagement
Journalists, unions and civil society organisations have raised concerns about working conditions, health and safety, and the ability of Amazon workers in fulfilment and delivery to form, join and collectively bargain via unions. Freedom of association is one of the ILO Core Labour Standards. It plays a central role in ensuring workers are treated fairly by allowing them to form and join unions, engage in collective bargaining, and defend their rights at work.
What we did
We have been engaging Amazon about our concerns on workers’ rights for many years. In 2023–24 and 2024–25 we filed shareholder proposals calling for the company to commission an independent report on the degree to which its practices align with international human rights standards and its policies on freedom of association and collective bargaining. In June 2024, we wrote a public letter, supported by 47 global investors, to highlight concerns raised by GMB Union regarding its efforts to organise Amazon workers in Coventry.
In March 2025, Amazon moved to ‘no-action’ the latest shareholder proposal, so as to remove it from the ballot at the annual general meeting. The company argued that the proposal, under new rules, constituted ‘ordinary business’ and was therefore beyond the purview of investors (see box below). We interpreted this as a move to block a resolution that had previously secured significant investor support.
In June, we organised a roundtable for investors and wealth managers in the UK to discuss labour rights at Amazon. The roundtable included contributions from GMB Union members who had been attempting to organise workers in Coventry.
Outcomes
In October 2025, executives from Amazon came to CCLA’s London offices for a meeting and also invited us on a tour of the company’s Dartford fulfilment centre (LCY3).
Amazon flew a tour guide in from Seattle to meet with a group of London-based investors for the tour. During the tour, we were told that LCY3 is equivalent to seven football pitches in size, employs 2,500 workers on-site, and packs on average six million packages per week. This number significantly increases during busy periods.
We saw investments that Amazon had made in automation and robotisation. Large areas of the distribution centre are now fully automated, such that the main role of human packers is to pick up items from containers, scan them and insert them into folders on robot stacks. Amazon was keen to emphasise that it had introduced investments in automation to increase safety as well as efficiency. Representatives also explained the mechanisms they have to engage employees, employee safety committees and European-style works councils.
Following the tour, Amazon representatives came to CCLA’s offices to discuss the issues of collective bargaining and labour standards. They wished to discuss our concerns and gauge how they could address them. The representatives appeared ready to listen but made no commitments; they took note of what we said but maintained their position that Amazon respects workers’ rights to freely associate and collectively bargain. This was only a first step, but the company’s willingness to send representatives in person to discuss these issues is a positive development. We will continue to engage with Amazon on collective bargaining and are encouraging the company to publish ongoing data on its engagement with worker representative organisations.