A group of Amazon workers in Minnesota who are Somali refugees resettled in the Midwestern US state demanded better working conditions Friday during a protest outside one of the retailer’s warehouses.
Dozens braved frigid temperatures to demonstrate outside of the Amazon warehouse in the Minneapolis suburb of Shakopee — home to a sizable Somali immigrant population from which Amazon has heavily recruited.
The protest is the latest effort by the workers, who say East African immigrants make up a majority of the workforce at the massive warehouse but go unheard.
“We don’t have rights in the company,” worker Abdulkadir Ahmad, 30, told AFP.
The workers, many of whom are practicing Muslims, say the required productivity rate is too high, that the company is unconcerned about too many worker injuries and that the conditions don’t allow practicing Muslims to pray as they otherwise would.