Shakopee, MN – Over 100 employees at ‘MSP1’, a large Amazon warehouse in Minnesota, plan a four-hour work stoppage at the peak of business on Amazon’s “Prime Day” sales promotion event.

Workers say that demanding quotas and pressure to perform at high speeds causes undue stress as well as avoidable workplace injuries.

The Shakopee Amazon warehouse is staffed primarily by immigrants from Minneapolis’ large Somali, East African, and Latinx communities. The facility also faces an ongoing lawsuit from three Somali-American women workers who say their religious needs as Muslims are not met, and that they have faced retaliation for organizing against poor working conditions at their workplace.

Organizers expected more workers to join the strike, but said the Amazon workers were intimidated by the police presence in the parking lot and also at the entrances of the Amazon Fullfillment center. Workers and allies continued to hold space outside and formed a picket line.

The Amazon Prime Day strike brought together workers from the Shakopee fullfillment center, and Amazon tech workers from Seattle who came to stand with their fellow workers.

Title image credit: Tony Webster / via Wikimedia Commons