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Amazon Workers Strike In Germany As Christmas Orders Peak
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Washington Post reports that in Germany, Amazon's second-biggest market behind the United States, hundreds of Amazon.com workers went on strike just as pre-Christmas sales were set to peak, in a dispute over pay and conditions that has raged for months. Amazon, which employs 9,000 warehouse staff members in Germany plus 14,000 seasonal workers at nine distribution centers, says that 1,115 employees joined the strike at three sites. 'Amazon must realize it cannot export its anti-union labor model to European shores. We call on the company to come to the table and sign a global agreement that guarantees the rights of workers,' says Philip Jennings of the global trade union UNI. Verdi organized several short stoppages this year to try to force Amazon to accept collective-bargaining agreements ... The union says Amazon workers receive lower wages than others in retail and mail-order jobs and that other retailers pay overtime, but Amazon does not. 'What Amazon is doing is taking this American race-to-the-bottom roadshow to Germany and trying it out on our German brothers and sisters,' says David Freiboth. Amazon has defended its wage policies, saying that employees earn toward the upper end of the pay scale of logistics companies in Germany. Amazon also says it prefers to address employment issues with worker councils at individual sites rather than through negotiations with the union. Amazon says that there have been no delays to deliveries ... adding that Amazon uses its whole European logistics network during the Christmas period to ensure delivery times. A delegation of German workers was set to rally at Amazon's headquarters in Seattle along with U.S. unions. 'We're standing in solidarity with them. We are asking that Amazon respect the union there in Germany and negotiate in a way that is acceptable to Verdi,' says Kathy Cummings of the Washington State Labor Council, AFL-CIO, which was also attending the protest in Seattle."
they're already doing it pretty heavily... this sort of thing... striking in the middle of a christmas season... it inspires drastic steps.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Naive little American, how's your minimum wage that just keeps shrinking and shrinking working out for your economy?
Amazon must realize it cannot export its anti-union labor model to European shores. ... ... powered by lobbying machine KPMG Consulting, their shill Gerhard 'Let's wrap him in barbed wire and shoot him into the sun' Schröder, Hartz 4 cheap-flexible-workforce-supply powered by German taxpayer and so forth. ... There, fixed that for you.
As much as I love shopping for stuff at amazon, I'm totally with these strikers. Kick them where it hurts is my vote on this! Go, workers rights, go! Voll in die Eier! ... I hope this spills over into the US, a notable signal no-holds barred neo-con corporate-socialism disguised as free market capitalism desperately needs. Here and across the pond.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
The union says Amazon workers receive lower wages than others in retail and mail-order jobs and that other retailers pay overtime, but Amazon does not. Amazon has defended its wage policies, saying that employees earn toward the upper end of the pay scale of logistics companies in Germany.
Please note that the union sees the work as a mail-order job, where wages are higher.
Amazon thinks of it as a logistics job.
The union demands that Amazon recognize that the workers are in the mail-order business and pay accordingly.
What power has law where only money rules.
Seriously, if you don't want the work don't take it. Nobody forces you to work at Amazon
And, what the hell do you think a strike is, anyway?
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
FTA....
1. Amazon says that it's pay is already near the top of the scale for logistic centers.
2. German Union Organizers have a problem with Amazon defining their distribution warehouses as "logistic centers" because it allows them to pay less than they would otherwise be required to.
Germany's strike is really a strike against Amazon fulfillment centers being allowed to classify themselves as "Logistics" centers. I'm curious what a better definition would be.
"Amazon also says it prefers to address employment issues with worker councils at individual sites rather than through negotiations with the union."
Yeah, I bet they do.
That's actually the reason we have unions in the first place, you know...
And, what the hell do you think a strike is, anyway?
Posted here already, so I can't give you mod points. But really, this American attitude is quite idiotic. Wages are always negotiated. Sometimes one side is more powerful, sometimes it's not. Walmart left Germany with its tail between its legs, and what a loss is it for the country! (If anyone thinks Walmart makes low prices, Aldi and Lidl do that a lot better while actually providing quality products _and_ paying their employees decent wages). Nobody will shed a tear if Amazon does the same.
It's sad that Amazon and other organizations in the US have succeeded so much in suppressing Unions.
I guess I'll do a little whistleblowing on a job I had with Joann Fabrics here in the US in one of their warehouses. It was during the Christmas season and they hired many temp employees from temp agencies to fill out their staff to meet orders. I was one of many "pickers", someone who hauls heavy stuff all day (20+ pounds, all day for 8 hours) in a very dusty, dirty warehouse. The air was thick with the dust, so much so that if I didn't wear a mask, I'd be hacking up phlegm within an hour. Most people working there didn't wear masks. One guy said that, because many of the boxes come from overseas, he gets a rash every fall that "is red and itches like crazy". It happens around the same time shipments come in.
They treated us pretty badly, running us hard, as hard as the people who were there for 20 years, and expecting us to perform at their pace or get canned. You had your stats told to you every day. When I started at a whopping $8.00/hr, I was told I'd get a $.25 raise after working for 600 hours. I wanted to laugh in the supervisor's face.
This is the way these warehouses are, generally. As a worker you are paid crap, treated like crap, expected to work insanely hard, and if your health suffers, oh well.
There is no minimum wage here in Germany, at least not currently.
There is a number of exploitation of cheap labour, mostly from east European countries, some say it's the only reason why our economy is the strongest in Europe. It's basically modern slavery, they earn 5€ per hour, which for them is a lot of money, but would be ridiculously low for German living costs including insurance, health care and other expenses.
Workers in adjacent countries, like France, lose their jobs because their parent companies rather have goods shipped to Germany and processed there. Then shipped back again, because it's way cheaper than processing goods locally in France, where the minimum wage is almost twice as much (9.4something€ per hour).
Our Lobbyist Kiss-asses, err, I meant to say politicians, fear that minimum wages will ruin the economy of Germany, will destroy jobs. Now that a minimum wage (around 8€) was promised to be introduced in 2016 from the coalition of Germany's upcoming government, we'll see how things will develop.
Americans are actually behind Europeans in the "race to the bottom": median income by country. Median household income in the US is 25% higher than Germany, 43% higher than Italy, and 70% higher than Spain. The only European countries with higher median income than the US are oil-rich Norway, or ones that benefit from "don't ask don't tell" banking sectors. So the typical American worker is doing better than the typical worker just about anywhere in the world.
To the extent that the "race to the bottom" means competing with third world nations like China for manufacturing jobs, note that China's rapid economic growth the in the last 20 years has done more to improve the quality of life and reduce worldwide inequality than just about any economic development program. While there are many in America and Germany who end up getting the short end of the stick, when comparing the additional misery of hundreds of thousands of Westerners who lost their livelihood versus the improvement in the standard of living for tens of millions of people in the third world from subsistence farming to a modicum of caloric stability, it is difficult to say that the "race to the bottom" is an entirely bad thing for humanity as a whole, or that America has not done an acceptable job of dealing with this challenge at least as well as other nations.
Jobs like this, with no skills are a dime a dozen, and are the types of jobs (like fast food) that are FIRST jobs, ones for young kids to start with and learn the work ethic and then move up and on to better jobs.
Someone sorting mail or flipping burgers does not rate getting $20/hr or more. That's just nonsense.
I'm not disagreeing with you in principle. However, the reality is, there are tens (hundreds?) of millions of Americans and billions of people worldwide with no real skills whatsoever. None. They're capable of nothing but jobs without a skill requirement. These people rightfully want to sleep, eat, buy stuff, and get healthcare just like everyone else. And yet, they either lack the circumstance, the ability, the willpower, or the mental acuity to grow beyond a job that requires no skills. I am not judging how they came to be in this situation, only remarking that this is their reality.
This is a fact. These people need to be able to survive their whole lives. They need to earn enough not to be a burden on the rest of us. How can this be accomplished? If we aren't willing to give them higher wages, and we're not willing to pay for them to get training to do something more meaningful, then this situation will never change.
- Vincit qui patitur.