Germany strikes again over Amazon warehouse pay German union Verdi has not given up on the hopes that striking at Amazon warehouses will change the mega-etailer’s mind about pay. Verdi wants workers at distribution centres in Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig, Graben, and Rheinberg to walk out as it continues its agitation over pay and working conditions. "Amazon still refuses to …
So you're saying (circa) half the population were neither dead nor under communism? Isn't this episode their turn?
Or does that come when the united Germany either endures Brussels ordinated Weimar style inflation, or has to pay for the profligacy of all of Southern Europe.
AC because, well, just because.
"Right-wing politics are political positions or activities that view some forms of social hierarchy or social inequality as either inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically justifying this position on the basis of natural law or tradition."
Remind me, what did the genocidal cabal that first seized Germany — based on organised perversion of the constitution from a footing of just 18% of the vote in the one genuinely democratic election they took part in — and then seized Poland, Austria, etc, think about Jews, Gypsies, gays, etc?
"The Germans ended up bankrupt and with millions dead, their country split in two and half of them living under communism for the next half century because of a right-wing dictatorship"
Not that old line again.....
There is nothing right wing about National Socialists. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled wasn't convincing the world that he didn't exist, it was convincing the hard left that they weren't the bad guys in WWII.
As a German I am deeply offended by these comments, still I am also happy in the knowledge that I have better healthcare, produce better cars, have higher pay, a better living standard, cheaper beer, cleaner streets, longer paid holidays, job security against redundancy , a better work ethic to name but a few points.
Notwithstanding the fact that our sausages are made from 90% of the best pork meat and unlike British sausages, do not contain 50% fillers and horse.
My country now also owns most of Europe AND we have the best National Football Team in the World. I ask you where England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland were during the World Cup? I will tell you.
Of the 4, three didn't get there and one was on a flight home
As to the Amazon strike, they are all foreign workers, mainly Osties, or East Europeans as you call them and not upstanding German workers. Soon they will leave and make their way to your British Island where they can claim benefits and live happy lives without work paid for by the minority working people. Good luck to you.
"As a German I am deeply offended by these comments,"
Boo hoo. Your ancestors should have thought of this risk before annexing Austria. And invading Poland. And the Czech Republic (or whatever they called it at the time). And the Netherlands. And Belgium. And France. And Russia. And shitloads of other countries besides. And gassing....actually looking at the Middle East today you might have a point on that last one.
"As to the Amazon strike, they are all foreign workers, mainly Osties, or East Europeans ..."
Your argument was going so well up to this point. But, Christ, the genes haven't changed much in seventy years, have they?
Unfortunately Germany allowed itself to be led by an AUSTRIAN and not a clear thinking German unlike today where a clear thinking German leads Europe.
Yes my ancestors were foolish and stupid, but yours have not learned any lessons from history before helping to fuel the Middle Eastern crisis and claim success in Afganistan.
Also you relive 1966 time and time again when Germany has triumphed in 4 World Cups and 3 UEFA Championships. You live for the past we live for the future. Klop.
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"As a German I am deeply offended by these comments, still I am also happy in the knowledge that I have better healthcare, produce better cars, have higher pay, a better living standard, cheaper beer, cleaner streets, longer paid holidays, job security against redundancy , a better work ethic to name but a few points."
Yes, but collectively you love the music of David Hasslehoff. So we win.
As well as wanting collective bargaining, Verdi is trying to force through that those working in thr warehouses aren't,warehouse workers, bur retail workers, because Amazon is a retailer.
That would mean that the workers don't have to work late or if they do, they get a much bigger shift,bonus, because shop workers aren't expected to work after about 20:00.
As an American, all can say is thank god for the Germans and the pressure they are putting on American companies to pay decent wages.
Have all of you not read the horror stories right here on El Reg about working conditions at Amazon? Do you think Amazon is an exception? No. Most Americans companies are run exactly like Amazon.
My point being is god help you if you are a "blue collar" employee in America or working for an American company, because nobody else will, except, it seems, for the Germans. (and a handful of other European companies)
"As an American, all can say is thank god for the Germans and the pressure they are putting on American companies to pay decent wages."
I'm touched. But your concerns really ought to be directed at your home market:
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/its-sundown-in-america/
Long, a bit reactionary, but fundamentally accurate, and quite horrifying for those able to follow the full flow of the argument.
Coming back to Amazon, if they're breaking German law, I have every confidence in the German courts to force them to change their ways. If they're not, then the choices of the German consumer will dictate the outcome.
Why should a company not headquartered in a particular country (like Germany) have to follow that country's trivial little laws on things like union representation and minimum wage. This seems anarchist to me. A large company like Amazon has a right as a global citizen/corporate person to live where and however it wants. They should move to China, then they would be under Chinese law and could pay all their US and European workers Chinese market wages and not have to put up with first world labor law nonsense.
Right you are...amazing how this crap keeps coming up. One thing not mentioned in the article is that Amazon has other distribution centers just across various borders that could assume part (most?) of the load in order to apply pressure. So not only do they destroy mom-and-pop shops and brick-and-mortar stores of all sorts and sizes, they're into union-busting big time. Kindling fire in the market indeed....
And don't get me started on the drones ("with a drone, you're never alone"). Criminy, there's enough crap in the skies already without a bunch of toy choppers delivering what? More toy choppers... :(
Also for folks like crispy-crap above,
1) WWII ended almost 70 years ago.
2) The good guys won.
3) Deal with it. (and get over it).
4) Now go back under the bridge and play with the other trolls. Geesh....
I have never heard of Amazon being called a logistics company before - especially as they outsource delivery to other companies anyway. I wouldn't name them if I was asked to list off some names of what I would call logisitics companies e.g. Fedex, UPS, TNT etc.
I wonder whatthey'd say if I asked them to collect a package from an office in London and ship it to Berlin?
I think that if the working conditions in the Amazon factory are so miserable and the pay so lousy, how is it they are able to hire people to work there? Surely there are other employers who treat their workers better. Then Amazon would have to offer more. And so it goes.
Taking into consideration the still high levels of unemployment in the areas where Amazon has its distribution centres in Germany, plus the types of employment offered (low/unskilled manual warehouse/shipping work), the fact that in Germany you need to complete an apprenticeship to stack shelves or <strikethru>flip burgers</strikethru> work in system gastronomy, plus the relatively high numbers of immigrant workers, your free market idealism falls flat. There is nowhere else to go for a lot of many of these folk.
The free market is neither free, nor a market... if it were free, it would be Deutsche Bank, AIG and others that were broke and not Greece
Well put, the same level of exploitation, false market economy, if not cosiderably worse exists here in the Uk, even to the extent of giving Amazon goverment assistance through a subsidised living wage through benefits & tax "efficiency"!
Prehaps we should take the Germans initiative & resort too industrial action too, fight them globaly as it seams our government will only listen & do zero to stand up to zero hours contacts, virtual zero taxation & soaring profits.
Prehaps if we as consumers boycotted Amazon with regard to the high true cost we pay.
"even to the extent of giving Amazon goverment assistance through a subsidised living wage through benefits"
All employers are treated alike with regard to the idea of benefits as a subsidy, and the employers you suppose to gain from this are simply those employing unskilled staff. The problem is nothing to do with Amazon, rather that the tax and benefits systems are vastly complex disasters, so that you have nonsense like employers being taxed for employing people, then employees pay tax themselves, then some of those people get the tax back as benefits because the money they are left with is deemed insufficient to live on.
Interestingly the recent union demands for a substantial increase int he minimum wage might have some merit as a solution - but only if accompanied by reform of the welfare state to reduce complexity and get working people off of benefits. But that won't happen - the Tories won't increase the MW that much because they don't like the idea of increasing business costs, and Labour wouldn't do so because they want as many people as possible to be suckling on the state. And the lesson of the Scottish referendum will reinforce that Labour view - in essence the overall vote was swung by pensioners who voted No in response to all the pensions FUD from that economic illiterate Gordon Brown.
My objection to Amazon is the combination of benifit subsidised wages & tax avoidance. This not only see's the money you & I pay in taxes, (but also that from our vital SME's, stifling their growthi), sail off shore to bolster their profits, but also effectively gives the likes of Amazon free use of our infrastructure.
I agree with you, our tax & benifits system would benifit the economy greatly if it was deeply rationalised as you outlined. I would also like to see a flat rate of tax too rather than this hodge podge of income & consumer taxes. Suprisingly & by accident, most income groups contribute tax roughly the same proportion of their income of 30%, (the rich end predominantly by income & the poor predominantly by consumer tax such as Vat & fuel duty). With greater simplicity comes greater transparancy and greater difficulty in avoidong ones responsibility.
Nazism? Football? Xenophobia? Crumbs when did the dailymail readership turn up.
Anyway, I agree with Amazon here really but not because of any of their arguments. I'm a supporter of trade unions but I don't believe in these collective pay agreements. They are just backwards and de-motivating. The union should act on the behalf of each individual and use collective action to support individuals in the face of any bullying or unfair actions from the company.
> I'm a supporter of trade unions but I don't believe in these collective pay agreements. They are just
> backwards and de-motivating.
They worked rather well for Germany actually. As an employer, you only had one organization to deal with. Your workers had considerable input into what the union did and so you did not have the result that the union annihilated jobs with unreasonable demands (the public service union was an exception to this of course). You were always free to pay more, specifically to encourage good results.
Nowadays however, the unions in Germany are far too political for their own good and they are perceived as political organizations. Union membership dropped, so did the bargaining power of the unions and they are now a lot more unreasonable. Ms. Nutzenberger spouts nonsense in so far as she claims that there is a legal right to a collective pay arrangement under German law. There is a legal right for the union to go on strike and there is a legal right for the union to offer a collective pay scheme. But Amazon does neither have to take the offer nor to refrain from using non-unionized labour to continue its operations.
I feel that other commentators have missed the point, the union has suggested that the pickers fall under mail order and retail industries, where as Amazon calls them logistics workers.
If I order from a Next catalogue either on the internet, phone or by mail, we would refer to this as mail order, even if they use a logistics company to pick, pack and ship the item. If I order from the online Amazon catalogue then they call themselves a logistics company, I personally cannot see the difference.
The union, whether you like them or not says that Amazon is a mail order business, and therefore the workers need to be recognised as such, which may result in better pay and conditions. I wholeheartedly agree with them on one hand but remind them that Amazon can always open up warehouses elsewhere that can serve Germany just as well and probably cheaper.
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