Twelve people were arrested during a protest outside an Amazon warehouse in Bridgeport on Saturday, organizers said.
Around 9:30 a.m., protesters gathered outside the Amazon warehouse at the corner of West 36th Street and South Ashland Avenue to disrupt the company’s deliveries and call upon elected officials to make large companies “pay what they owe in taxes,” organizers said.
A crowd of people holding a chain and signs could be seen blocking the delivery entrance to the warehouse in video captured by an NBC Chicago photographer.
The protest was planned by a group called PowerUp that is a coalition of community and labor organizations, including Chicago Teachers Union, SEIU Healthcare Illinois, United Working Families and more.
“Workers, Medicaid recipients, community members, and other Illinoisans who will be impacted by Trump’s tax cuts will demand that Illinois legislators act quickly to generate progressive revenue by decoupling our state from Trump’s tax bills, passing the digital ads tax and the billionaire wealth tax, and enacting worldwide combined reporting to stop powerful global corporations like Amazon from dodging their state taxes before the end of the legislative session on May 31,” organizers said in a statement ahead of the protest.
Organizers said the protest went on for 5 hours.
Illinois State Senator Graciela Guzmán was in attendance at the protest, organizers said, and she expressed a commitment to fighting for progressive revenue in Springfield.
Amazon did not immediately respond to NBC Chicago’s request for comment.
