Amazon workers in Europe protest low pay

As Americans scoured the internet in search of shopping deals on Friday, Amazon.com warehouse workers in Europe were protesting the e-commerce giant — in some cases walking off the job to highlight what they said were unsafe working conditions and low pay.

The protests struck Amazon across the continent, including in Italy, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. In Britain, union officials representing Amazon workers predicted that hundreds would appear at protests throughout the day in five locations.

“The conditions our members at Amazon are working under are frankly inhuman,” said Tim Roache, general secretary of GMB, in a statement on the organization’s website.

Earlier this year, the U.K.based group said a Freedom of Information request aimed at first responders showed that ambulances had responded to calls for help at Amazon facilities 600 times over the last three years.

Amazon didn’t respond to a request for comment but told the Guardian, “Our European Fulfillment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus on delivering for our customers and reports to the contrary are simply wrong.”

Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos also owns The Washington Post.

More than 600 workers have gone on strike in Germany, where workers earn a starting salary of about $12 an hour, according to Reuters. In Spain, one employee told The Associated Press that the walkout was timed for “one of the days that Amazon has most sales.”

Friday’s demonstrations quickly moved online as workers and supporters of the strike used the hashtag #AmazonWeAreNotRobots to spread the campaign.