German and European Amazon customers may or may not find their orders are a bit late as workers at the company's Leipzig distribution centers have staged a walk out to protest wages.
The strike was called for by the German trade union Ver.di. It essentially ended up as a morning wildcat strike. The number of workers involved was not known, but of the 2,000 employees at the center, around 700 are Verdi members. Overall, Amazon has about 9,000 workers in Germany spread over nine sites.
The March 31 action was termed a warning strike by the union to get Amazon to return to the negotiating table.
The union has been attempting to force Amazon to raise pay in its Leipzig facility saying that it is a distribution center. Amazon has countered stating it is actually a logistics center. In Germany, logistics site workers are paid at a lower rate than those working in distribution centers.
The union also staged walk outs during the busy holiday season at three other Amazon centers, although those actions did not cause any delivery delays.
Amazon's labor problems are not confined to Germany and it has been pushing back against union involvement in its centers since 2000.
In the most recent case, the online retailer came out on top. Last December, employees in a U.S. Amazon facility successfully petitioned the National Labor Relations Board enabling them to hold union elections in January. This was backed by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAMAW), a trade union of the AFL-CIO on behalf of 30 equipment maintenance workers who wish to hold a vote on whether or not to create a union presence in their shop.
However, the vote failed and the union was kept out of the Delaware distribution center. The union blamed pressure from Amazon on the vote's outcome, while Amazon said its workers prefer direct communication.
"This direct connection is the most effective way to understand and respond to the wants and needs of our employees. Amazon's culture and business model are based on rapid innovation, flexibility and open lines of direct communication between managers and associates," the company said at the time.
