Italian consumers were urged by unions to refrain from buying from Amazon for the day on Monday as about 40,000 of the online shopping giant’s logistical workers held a national strike over working conditions. It is the first walkout in Italy to affect Amazon’s entire supply chain and involves warehouse and logistical hub workers as well as drivers provided by third-party services. The 24-hour strike was called by the Filt Cgil, Fit Cisl and Uiltrasporti unions after negotiations over job contract revisions between the workers’ representatives and the US company broke down. According to the unions, Amazon’s delivery network in Italy depends on 40,000 workers, including those working for the company’s own logistical unit, which employs the majority of its 9,500 staff who are on full-time contracts. The main demands relate to workloads, long working hours for drivers, results-linked bonuses, lunch vouchers and stabilising temporary contracts. Unions also argue that workers ought to have been paid an allowance for having continued to work during the coronavirus pandemic, especially as the period marked a boom for Amazon orders. “The strike is necessary because the workers are exhausted,” said Michele De Rose, the national secretary of Filt Cgil. De Rose added that delivery drivers “work 44 hours a week, and very often for the entire month, following the indications of an algorithm that does not understand work-life balance nor the traffic times of our cities”. The workers’ and unions appealed to consumers to stop buying from Amazon for the day. “The people who receive the service are those we ask for solidarity, so that the service continues to be carried out in the best possible way,” the workers wrote in a statement. In a letter to customers, Mariangela Marseglia, Amazon’s manager in Italy, wrote that the company “respects the right of everyone to express their position”, adding that the company “puts our employees and those of third-party suppliers first” by offering them “a safe, modern and inclusive work environment, with competitive wages that are among the highest in the sector”.