Amazon beat all 18 shareholder-led proposals at its annual general meeting on Wednesday.

The number of shareholder-led proposals, which covered a wider range of issues from environmental, social and governance (ESG) to labour rights and animal welfare standards, was a record and exceeded the 15 proposals raised at the 2022 AGM.

The proposals require more than 50 per cent of shareholder votes to win, but Amazon is not obliged to adopt them. It will provide a final tally in an upcoming US Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

One prominent proposal came from activist investor Tulipshare, which called for an independent audit of Amazon’s warehouses after the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited violations. The company’s chief exec Antoine Argouges subsequently said that Tulipshare would continue to request meetings with Amazon to address the issue.

It was however continued labour issues which attracted most of the attention at the event, with a potential walkout by Amazon headquarters workers looming next week.

Chris Smalls, president and founder of the Amazon Labor Union, spoke at the event and accused Amazon of spending $14.2 million of shareholders’ money “battling its workers who just want to exercise their fundamental rights to form a union.”

He said: “Despite Amazon’s public commitment, Amazon workers have accused the company of conduct that violates both [International Labour Organisation] conventions and national law protecting freedom of association and collective bargaining rights. Many workers experience Amazon’s anti-union tactics including intimidation, retaliation, and division every day.”

Smalls highlighted that it was more than a year since workers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse voted to unionise, but that the company has refused to come to the table.

In a proxy statement, the Amazon board said: “A careful review of the facts regarding our workplace employee relations shows a different situation than suggested by this proposal and its supporting statement.”

Meanwhile across the Atlantic, hundreds of workers have walked out at the company's Coventry warehouse for the 15th time over pay and a "refusal to listen" to workers' concerns. GMB Union senior organiser Stuart Richards said: "The bosses at Amazon consistently have refused to get the message or listen to what their workers are saying. We’ve had a series of strikes at Coventry already and each time we do it we get more and more workers come and join us on the picket line."

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