AMAZON workers rattled Jeff Bezos’s cages today with rallies marking a year since the company’s biggest walkout in Britain began.

Hundreds of picketers shouted: “Freedom, we will not stop” as the bosses turned their warehouse into a fortress.

Up to 1,100 staff at Coventry and Rugeley fulfilment centres will have downed tools by their action’s first anniversary on Saturday.

Strikers on £11-an-hour wages today defiantly faced down heavy private security and shook newly erected metal barriers keeping them out.

They told the Morning Star they barely see their children because they’r forced to work second jobs, vowing to continue their demands for a cost-of-living pay rise to £15.

A 36-year-old dad-of-one at the Coventry rally told Amazon founder Jeff Bezos: “Respect your people, respect your employees.

“I’m lifting 20 tons a day, and more in some cases.

“Our kids will suffer in the future because we don’t have a lot of time to offer them for their education.

“After 10 hours’ work, you don’t have much energy when you go home to stay with them.

“A lot of friends of mine have second jobs: Uber driving, deliveries.

“If you work 10 hours daily here and you can do two or three hours extra after your shift, in one week you do almost 95 hours.”

Another dad said: “We are just literally numbers in there.

“You live from wage to wage. With the living costs you can’t afford to go out for a meal.”

Amazon auditor Marie Grimmett, 57, of Bedworth, Coventry, joined the protests in solidarity with her colleagues.

She said: “Some are having to make a choice between paying a bill and eating. I just think it’s awful. 

“People are working 60 hours a week standing 10 hours a day. It’s constant, it’s non-stop. I feel that should be a choice, not a necessity.”

A 35-year-old mum-of-three warehouse worker said: “The more we strike the more join.”

GMB regional organiser Ferdousara Uddin said Amazon’s decision to put up metal fences for today’s rally backfired.

She told the Star: “Amazon are trying what they can on this industrial estate to make it as difficult as possible for the strikes and it clearly is failing. 

“The fencing went up today and you can see there’s heavy police presence, there’s more security today as well.

“It’s backfired on Amazon if anything because it’s fired [the strikers] up more to think what will Amazon do to stop them.

“Amazon says they are a company that listens to their workers — 12 months on we’ve had people ask, ‘is this how they listen, by putting up cages outside?’”

She added: “All of these guys are from the gig economy, a lot of them work here and have a second job just to sustain themselves because wages are not enough. 

“It’s anger isn’t it, they’ve been striking — tomorrow is the anniversary of their first walkout, these guys are striking for a year and they are not being listened to.”

Amazon said it regularly reviewed its pay and offered “competitive wages and benefits.”

It said minimum pay has risen by more than 37 per cent since 2018 to between £11 and £12.