Amazon May Face Strikes in Germany

It seems that online retailer Amazon may be facing strike action in Germany in the run-up to Christmas. According to the secretary of the German services union Verdi, Amazon should not rely on being able to keep all its promises to customers before Christmas and that Verdi would call strikes when it would hurt Amazon most.



Actually, Germany has already had a few strikes by Amazon employees in 2013 over wages. In summer and fall, a few hundred workers at the American company’s distribution centers in Leipzig, Saxony and Bad Hersfeld in the Hesse region walked out. The German services union, accounting for about 2.2 million members, has claimed it wants to force the retailer to negotiate a collective wage agreement which would comply with standards in the German retail sector. In response, Amazon claims that its wages are above average in the logistics industry. Its representatives explained that job descriptions for staff were typical of the logistics industry like the storage, packaging and dispatch of goods. The company also pointed out that the strikes in June and September hadn’t affected customers.

At the moment, there is no detail on whether the strikes are planned again for the centers in Leipzig or Bad Hersfeld, or any other of the 8 distribution centers in the country. It is known that Amazon employs over 9,000 people in Germany but is reportedly considering opening 5 new centers in Poland and the Czech Republic.