Amazon workers in Germany are once again striking, this time for two days. Workers have walked out of Amazon’s distribution centers in Leipzig and Bad Hersfeld and the current strike follows three earlier one-day strikes in the last month.
The ver.di union which is organising the strikes assert that Amazon workers should be paid according to terms agreed with other mail-order retailers under a a collective bargaining agreement. Amazon claim that their workers are warehouse workers and well paid above the average compared with German industry norms for logistics.
Stefanie Nutzenberge, a Member of Verdi’s national executive claims that “Collective agreements protect employers against arbitrariness and set minimum standards that we will defend together with the employees”. Amazon reckon that their operations are very different to traditional mail order businesses.
Ver.di claim that their workers are becoming “richtig sauer” with Amazon, which roughly translates to “pissed off”. I suspect Amazon management feel the same way about ver.di.
