Protest over US global e-commerce giant Amazon’s impact on SA jobs and businesses
Hundreds of workers are protesting over US giant Amazon’s impact on South Australian “jobs and businesses” at Cavan today.
South Australians are joining a nationwide strike by the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association (SDA) and the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance (MEAA) against what they claim is Amazon’s “destruction of Australian jobs and businesses”.
In Adelaide, the protest is taking place outside the Amazon warehouse and delivery station in Cavan this morning, while there were also protests in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.
The main action was outside the Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Kemps Creek in New South Wales.
Unions were demanding that Amazon “pay fair wages”, “pay its fair share of tax”, “pay for the creative and media content used to pay AI”, “stop excessive worker surveillance”, and “respect workers’ right to a voice at work through their unions”.
The US global online shopping and delivery giant was founded in 1994 and opened its first distribution centre in Cavan in 2021.
TWU national secretary Michael Kaine told InDaily that hundreds of transport workers, including those who work in Amazon warehouses, as well as retail workers and creatives, would be taking part in today’s protest against what he claimed was the destruction of Australian jobs and businesses by Amazon.
You might like
“While we’re all very accustomed to the convenience of Amazon and their promises of free delivery, what we’re doing today right across the country with hundreds of workers protesting at Amazon sites is shining a light on the exploitation and the destruction that Amazon is wreaking on good Australian businesses and Australian workers,” he said.
Kaine did not provide a specific example of Amazon destroying an Australian business but said that hundreds of Australian transport businesses had gone into liquidation over the past year.
Per ASIC and CreditorWatch data, 733 transport, postal and warehousing businesses had become insolvent for the first time in the 2025 financial year – an increase of 48 per cent on 2024.
SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer claimed that the union’s disputes with Amazon shared an attempt to silence workers in common.
“Amazon doesn’t want anything to interrupt their algorithm, so they try to deprive workers of a voice and representation. Basically, Amazon want to treat their ‘humans’ like they are robots too,” he said.
“If you don’t pay your fair share of tax, if you deny workers their rights, if you track every second of their working day — you should not be rewarded with public money. Ethical behaviour should be the cost of doing business with the Australian people.”
Stay informed, daily
MEAA chief executive Erin Madeley claimed Amazon, as well as other major AI developers, “trained its AI off the back of the stolen work of Australia’s creative and media workforce”.
“MEAA members are standing up and calling out this theft and are demanding to be paid when their work is used by AI,” she said.
“It’s not enough to ensure producers are paid when works are used by AI companies like Amazon. Creative and media workers are being ripped off and they must be directly compensated for all use of their work.”
Today’s protest followed Labor rejecting a copyright exemption for AI companies proposed by the Productivity Commission in August, following backlash from the creative sector.
Australia’s attorney-general Michelle Rowland told ABC radio “that there would be no weakening by this government of Australia’s laws when it came to artificial intelligence”.
Amazon Australia opened its first distribution centre in Cavan in 2021. At the time, Amazon claimed the site would help boost the local economy through the creation of jobs and meet increased customer demand.
“We’re pleased to contribute to the local economy through the creation of jobs and flexible earning opportunities for people in the area, and we look forward to delivering what our customers need and being an active member of the community,” Amazon said.
“The opening of our new Amazon Logistics site in Cavan enables us to provide an enhanced delivery experience for customers as we head into the festive season.
“Building infrastructure closer to where our customers live enables us to deliver them more efficiently, and with the arrival of the Cavan delivery station, people in the Adelaide region will benefit from even faster delivery promises on their orders.”
An Amazon spokesperson said the claims were “unfounded”.
“We’re proud to provide quality jobs in Australia, where we now employ around 7,000 people across our businesses, in all sorts of roles, while helping create and support hundreds of thousands of small businesses across the world,” he said.
“We offer great pay and benefits, and provide a modern and safe working environment that can be seen through a tour of one of our fulfilment centres.
“We pay all applicable taxes in Australia. Corporate tax is based on profits, not revenues, and we continue to make significant investments in jobs and infrastructure across the country. This includes a AU$5 billion investment across our businesses in 2024 alone, and AWS’s recent AU$20 billion investment announcement that will create jobs, build AI capacity, and drive other economic and social benefits.”
