Fair play to them.
I probably wouldn't strike - I'd leave and do something else - but I can't say I blame the workers for wanting a better deal. Amazon, you reap what you sow.
Amazon workers in Germany are preparing to go on strike once again, in the middle of the busy holiday period, backed by a delegation demonstrating outside Amazon HQ in Seattle. The Verdi trade union has said that workers would be striking in Amazon's warehouses in Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig and for the first time in Graben, while a …
Yes, bt they pay below the rates that are standard for Warehouse staff.
So it comes down to your definition are the Amazon workers logistics staff or wrehouse staff? Personally as someone with absolutely no connection to either industry I dont have a clue what the difference is, and I cant really imagine why there's a difference, but hell if I worked in a warehouse I would probably want the higher wages of being a warehouse worker as well!
As stated, the right thing to do is to negotiate better wages for the logistics workers. But Hermes (Amazons german competitor Otto's "outsourced" logistics), DHL, DPD, ... might not be happy with it. And might make Verdi feel that. So Verdi does the cheap cop out and tries to blackmail Amazon.
If everybody is lucky Amazon just shrugs and ignored the Chiwawa. If the workers have bad luck Amazon will handle Christmas 2014 logistics from Poland
Guess we won't be seeing Amazon Fresh in Germany any time soon then.
(Except, maybe, in the areas near the Polish border.)
Based on recent experience - I have to accept a lot of packages for others in my block - I think all this ordering of the internet is approaching a delivery cliff: the delivery companies are having more and more trouble actually delivering all the packages on any one day. As this is all terribly inefficient (travelling salesman) the prize will go to the company that comes up with the most efficient solution to the problem.
I thought the delivery companies were in the business of doing exactly that?
Sure, but there are very practical limits as too how many vans can deliver how much tat in how much time. People normally work until about 16:00 or 17:00. Last week I had one guy still trying to deliver stuff at 19:00. The German postal service increased its profits last year due to an increase in the price of stamps as letter deliveries scale better than parcels but basically they want to cut out the last mile, which is, of course, the main convenience of online shopping: tat gets delivered to your door.
Evening delivery should be normal, not a sign of problems! Most of us are out at work and then have to rearrange with couriers. Paying delivery workers a premium to work an evening shift might well be offset by reducing the waste time and administration in multiple failed deliveries every day. Somebody should try the experiment! 21st-century life is still plagued with 20th-century delivery services.
the prize will go to the company that comes up with the most efficient solution to the problem.
In France most mail-order/internet companies offer cheaper shipping charges if you have your parcel delivered to a local collection point, usually a newsagents or corner shop in a nearby village or town. It's easier and cheaper for the shipper to do one multi-parcel delivery to the shop, and for most people who are passing through the town it's no great hardship to call in to collect a parcel when they get the SMS to tell them it's waiting.
The Germans have a far superior work and employment ethic to workers and companies in the US. There's a much, much greater expectation of a days fair pay for a fair days work. If they're striking it means a lot more than US workers striking.
For US workers to pitch a fit at Christmas is the fastest way possible to be forced out of a job. It's one thing to strike during slow times of the year, but critical time strikes like these impact lots of other people and the workers lose their support, not the employer. It will be the striking worker that gets blamed if Sally's Christmas present doesn't arrive on time.
There's an art to strikes and this is not how it is practiced. It comes across as petty and childish. They'd get support from other unionized workers if they weren't disrupting those workers Christmas. You start messing with emotional stuff like that and you lose. Every single time.
VerDi hopes for press coverage (sadly worked) and new members (didn't work). As for loosing support - VerDi is made up of ÖTV and postal union functionaries in the core. They are used to loosing support (and having to accept lousy deals in the end), just ask the garbage men
Too be fair, I don't think the issue is being reported quite how Ver.di (if you're going to ape the logotype) would like it to be: the focus is as much on working conditions as money.
Of course, the hairsplitting over whether they are "logistics" or "mail order" workers is a typically German obsession. I can't remember whether the "Entsendegesetz" (which forces German companies to pay German rates to foreign employees working in Germany and which does notoriously not apply in the meat processing industry) applies here.
Overall I'm not sure it really matters: Amazon's is up against very fierce competition against an already extremely efficient logistics sector that has already forced WalMart out. Aldi and co. are just as good at screwing their suppliers and employees as the next and have the added advantage of incumbency and having the right friends in the right places.
The Entsendegesetz is not important here since Amazon Logistics pays all people employed by it the same wage anyway. The "Leiharbeiter-Scandal" (rented/hired workers scandal) that you might refer to had more to do with the security company and our "neutral and reliable" ARD reporters (assuming you are politically left-wing) and our competent Minister von der Leyen (who's reality distortion field could put a fundamentalist tree huger or southern creationist to shame) way of reporting on it
No changing jobs anymore? Oh well.
"The union wants Amazon to use the collective bargaining agreements in the mail order and retail industry in the country as the basis for how it pays its workers. But the mega etailer insists that its employees are from the logistics sector and are paid above-average wages for that industry."
I can't comment about the "above-average wages" but for me they are definitely in the logistics sector. If they were retail or mail order one would see them or speak to them. No such thing occurs.
Just to put the "VerDi" press release that is, sadly, transcribed rather unreflected here:
The average number of protesters per location is below 10 percent of the workers. And that is IIRC not counting the part timers hired for Christmas. Sure, all VerDi members might be on strike. Problem for VerDi is - most workers at Amazon Logistics are not premium payers<<<members of that funny lil pseudo-union.
VerDi needs a "success" and his boss a few strokes for his ego so they go up against the "evil capitalist from the USA". Too bad that they attack Amazon LOGISTICS, a company that pays well above the labor contract for the logistics industry. A LOUSY contract but one haggled out by - VERDI.
So now VerDi tries to put Amazon Logistics into the "Versandhandel" and force AL to accept that contract payments. And Amazon says "Thanks but no thanks". Rightly since the majority of work AL does is "take stuff from storage, put in package, put package in truck" - simples form of logistics (with matching quality of education in many workers)
The RIGHT think for VerDi to do would be to improve the LOGISTIC Workers labor contract. Sadly THAT would put them in serious problems with some very big and powerful GERMAN companies and those might take a VERY close look at VerDi and it's "Tariffähigkeit" that is wether VerDi is actually a proper representation of the workers / the proper contract partner.
This is basically VerDi's equivalent to a "Banzai Charge". If they fail at least the current leadership will suffer a "sudden illness" - not that it would hurt Verdi to get rid of the old ÖTV and postal union parasites.
Ordered a number of things from Amazon for Christmas. Made sure it was "sold and delivered by Amazon" stuff.
The big A gave me delivery times within this week all falling in the "typical" range for the goods ordered.
By Friday evening I'll know for sure if Verdi failed to stop the good guys
With Christmas done:
All packages arrived well in time and as advertised. Same for the family members. Verdi's propaganda is taking more and more of a "Germany, April 1945" tone with lies, mis-use of fixed terms and all.
Looks like 2014 will be the "year Verdi dies" and makes room for multiple specific unions. Good!