‘No to Black Friday consumerism’: Protest at Amazon’s Dublin offices

The scale of the lunchtime protest in Dublin against the promotion of consumerism by Amazon and the environmental impact of the company’s data centres was comfortably eclipsed by the number of Irish people buying from its website on Black Friday but organisers of the event said the event marked the start of a new phase in post-pandemic climate activism here.

“This has been done quickly to link in with what is happening in other countries,” said Manuel Salazar of Extinction Rebellion who believes support for the organisation is growing again after its profile was impacted by Covid-19.

“We’ve always been there but obviously Covid happened and our numbers dropped. Now, we are coming back we see the failure of Cop, what nature is doing, that the climate crisis is still there and for next year we are going to resume our campaign of civil disobedience more seriously. We are going to escalate,” he said.

Friday’s event attracted only about a dozen supporters to the company’s offices at Burlington Road where workers came and went as the protesters chanted against the damage they say Amazon is causing the environment.

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Mr Salazar said the action was prompted by a combination of factors including the amount of energy the company’s proposed data centres will consume, its promotion of mass consumerism through Black Friday and the controversy over working conditions at its “fulfilment” centres internationally.

“We need to think in terms of a Green Friday rather than a Black Friday,” he said. “Amazon takes its toll in terms of the climate and we need to find ways of doing things in a more sustainable way.”

Dylan Murphy of Not Here, Not Anywhere, was attending in support of the group’s Press Pause on Data Centres campaign, arguing that while “the Government is asking ordinary people to tighten their belts in terms of energy use, the requirement doesn’t seem to apply to the tech companies”.

He was also critical of the culture of consumerism which, he says, is promoted by Amazon.

“They are trying to make Black Friday into something like another Christmas or Halloween so that people spend more money but we don’t need for people to spend more money.”

Some workers at Amazon sites in Germany and France downed tools on Friday as part of the Make Amazon Pay initiative, with sought to the target online retailer over its treatment of workers, tax avoidance policies and environmental record.

In Germany, there were demonstrations at nine out of Amazon’s 20 warehouses in the country, although on Friday morning, the company said the vast majority of its employees in Germany were working as normal.

France’s SUD and CGT unions called for strike action in the country’s eight warehouses.

Amazon France said there had been no sign of disruption to operations. Two French union officials said they were not expecting a big turnout because the rising cost-of-living was driving employees to seek overtime. - Additional reporting Reuters