THE value of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s shares in the company has grown so much during the Covid pandemic that he could afford to give each of his 1.2 million workers a £43,000 bonus and still have more money than before coronavirus hit, GMB said yesterday.

The union called on the world’s richest man to share his “Crassus-like wealth,” which GMB claimed has increased by a staggering £70.2 billion since the start of the pandemic.

GMB figures taken from health and safety reports showed last year that Amazon warehouse workers had suffered more than 600 serious injuries since 2016, including electric shocks and major traumas.

“It’s clear that financial regulations are the laws of the jungle,” GMB organiser Mick Rix said.

“How can Jeff Bezos become so rich from his share of the business, whilst conditions are so bad at his warehouses that, on average, there was an ambulance call-out to an Amazon warehouse once every two days?

“It’s time for him to step up and start investing in his workforce so [that they] start leaving with smiles on their faces, rather than in the back of an ambulance.”