Amazon employees in Germany strike just before Christmas

[BelgianMadCow]

Source: LA Times

Amazon.com workers in Germany walked off the job Monday to demand better wages and treatment, just as the e-commerce giant heads into the thick of Christmas gift-ordering.

The Ver.di union said a round of walkouts in Leipzig, Bad Hersfeld and Graben was planned in tandem with picketing outside of Amazon’s headquarters in Washington state.

A delegation of German workers is expected to rally outside the Seattle facility along with a collection of American protesters.

Ver.di said workers are seeking collective bargaining rights, healthy working conditions and respectful treatment.



Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-amazon-germany-strike-20131216,0,4243870.story#axzz2nigakCgI

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Much broader background on the why of the strikes can be found at Naked Capitalism:

Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse.

Germany’s ARD television channel made the allegations in a documentary about Amazon’s treatment of more than 5,000 temporary staff from across Europe to work at its German packing and distribution centres.

The film showed omnipresent guards from a company named HESS Security wearing black uniforms, boots and with military haircuts. They were employed to keep order at hostels and budget hotels where foreign workers stayed. “Many of the workers are afraid,” the programme-makers said.

No more Amazon for me.

[KG]

1. solidarnosc!

[mdbl]

2. This type of article used to appear in local newspapers

Abusive employers used to have to worry about their image. Now, it seems chic to them to be criticized for their terrible labor practices and treatment. We will probably hear none of this in the corporate media outlets.

[prairierose]

3. Certainly not in the corporate propaganda machine of...

the US. However, there is a growing number of alternative news outlets that will cover this and other important stories.

Welcome to DU.

[okaawhatever]

4. I wish we could see more coverage of stories like this. Especially stories where they explain the

conditions and why the workers are striking. I haven't seen a decent article in this country for why workers strike. Amazon must work very hard on their PR machine. I've read several articles in more independent papers about their conditions here and what they've done tax wise to different states and the word needs to get out. Thanks for posting this.

[BelgianMadCow]

5. Then you will like the follow-up post at NC, going into even greater depth

Slate Tries Presenting Amazon’s Abusive Warehouse Jobs as Great Opportunities

A mere day after strikes at Amazon warehouses in Germany, which caught the attention of the media in the US, Slate ran as its lead piece in Moneybox an article that bears all the hallmarks of being a PR plant: Amazon Warehouses Are the New Factories.

I suspect the author, Emma Roller, wouldn’t recognize a factory if it fell on her.

This piece is Dr. Pangloss meets neoliberalism. We are supposed to celebrate that blue collar workers can find employment at Amazon! And in a stunning display of fair and balanced reporting, there’s nary a mention of charges of abusive working conditions, intrusive surveillance, and unreasonable demands for worker output in the US, UK, and Germany.

The piece goes on to explain why Amazon jobs are much worse than regular factory jobs.