Amazon Workers Strike in Germany

Source: By Steve Jurvetson CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The workers’ union, Ver.di, has been seeking a change in the way Amazon classifies its warehouse workers. The first job action came almost a year ago, in May, when 500 workers walked off the job. A similar walk-out occurred in November, and the most recent came in late March.

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The union is repeating its demand that workers be paid wages according to the national standard for the mail order and retail sectors. Amazon classifies the employees as logistics workers who are paid on a lower scale. The company said its employees are paid above-average wages for that classification.

Amazon has countered the union’s demands with an offer for holiday bonuses, but it has refused even to talk with union representatives. The company insists on talking only to its own employee work councils. The company also claims that it pays its warehouse workers at the upper end of the logistics’ workers scale.

Amazon employs about 9,000 permanent fulfillment center workers in Germany and thousands more temporary workers, according to The Wall Street Journal. Amazon has never held any collective bargaining sessions with any union or group of employees anywhere, at any time, and very likely never will. The company already makes only the tiniest of profits when it makes any profit at all.

Amazon shares closed at $323.68 on Wednesday, in a 52-week range of $245.75 to $408.06. The stock was inactive in the premarket Thursday.

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