A long-running disagreement by Workers whose location is at German warehouses of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) over their current pay and conditions has led to the calling of a new strike by labor union Verdi. The strike which is scheduled to take place on the December 24, at four of the centers and which will be for shorter periods than any other will also include workers at six of the nine Amazon warehouses.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) hires around 9000 – 10,000 workers in nine of its warehouses in Germany. In December 2013, additional 10,000 temporary workers are hired to process orders due to the Christmas rush. The temps are paid 9.75 Euro to 10.62 Euro, which is decided based on location. The union is demanding a nationally agreed wage agreement for both the mail and retail sector. The wage paid in Hesse of retail collective contract is 12.96 Euro, where Amazon is paying 10.31 Euro. The workers have also brought forward complaints regarding too few breaks, temp contracts and work pressure.
In an effort to give assurances that all will be well, the spokeswoman has gone ahead to state that a huge number of employees are working. Hence customer delivery of Amazon’s network of 29 warehouses across Europe will not be impacted in any way.
However, the assurances sounded more of a defense owing to the fact that it is not the first time that Verdi is calling a strike at Amazon. Reports have it that since May 2013 Verdi has structured out repeated strikes seeking for a raised pay for warehouse workers. This clearly indicates that Amazon does not honor the Collective bargaining treaties in Germany’s mail order and retail industry.
In response to the union’s concern over employees pay rise, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) says that it has always regarded warehouse staff as logistics workers hence the reason for continued rejection of the union’s demands. But what about the working conditions? Well, nothing was said in regard to this.
Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) also said that the warehouse staff collect above-ordinary pay if the standards of the industry were anything to cling on. As it is now and with all the communication to and from each party all eyes waiting to see what happens on the 24th Dec.
