This year the groundhog greets a little more resolutely. Just before Christmas, Verdi is not only calling for a strike at Amazon to draw attention to the poor working conditions. This time the union wants to “seriously disrupt” the Christmas business of the world’s largest online retailer. It would be nice if you could do that.
Because if a gift does not arrive on time, perhaps one or the other Amazon customer would think for a moment about this insanely successful company – and wonder why it is so successful and at whose expense it is. But we get into dreaming. It won’t come to that.
Years ago, the then head of Amazon Germany mocked Verdi’s calls for a strike as condescendingly as it was true: Black ice would be much worse for Amazon before Christmas than a strike by a few employees. And that still applies today. Since it doesn’t look like black ice in Germany at the moment, nobody has to fear for their parcels. The Amazon machine is secured from many sides in such a way that it runs and runs.
And the marmot Verdi? Greeted again. See you next year then.
The strike call threatens to become a pre-Christmas ritual. Unfortunately. It would be a shame if it just stayed with the hardened positions of the two opponents. On the one hand, Verdi, the union for which Amazon is an anti-social group that makes billions in profits, but refuses to give any of it to its employees, for example in the form of remuneration based on the retail tariff for employees in logistics.
The problem goes beyond Amazon. Many traders pay too low wages
On the other hand, Amazon, the group, from whose point of view everything is in perfect order and which can calculate how well it pays all its employees: starting wage of twelve euros, plus extensive additional benefits and career opportunities. No other retailer has hired as many employees as he has in recent years: 23,000 people now work for the online mail order company in Germany.
So far, so confrontational. There is now momentum to make a difference. Germany has a new government and the new Amazon Germany boss Rocco Bräuniger has declared that he wants to make the group the “best employer”. He should be taken at his word. He cannot rely solely on the votes of a few employees. He will only be able to achieve his goal credibly if the union agrees with him.
In order to pave the way, Amazon and Verdi would have to end their ongoing dispute and the conflict would have to be raised to another level: the top political level with government and employers’ associations. Then, on a small scale, it would be about the question of why Amazon can join the German Retail Association, i.e. see itself as a retailer, but still be able to align its wages with the logistics industry.
In general, it is about how dumping wages and collective bargaining in retail can be avoided in general. Apart from parcel service providers or delivery services, the exit from the collective agreement is nowhere used as a competitive advantage as in retail. In some cases, the wages in companies that are not bound by collective bargaining agreements are up to 30 percent below the collective wage level. The risk of leading a life of poverty in old age is particularly high for retail workers.
A tried and tested means against this would be if the legislature declared collective agreements to be generally binding, leaving as little loopholes as possible. Even some big discount grocery stores would be in favor, because then there would be equality of arms among the companies.
Above all, a lot would then be done for a large part of the approximately three million employees in retail, not just exclusively for Amazon employees. But also, for example, for numerous saleswomen who work part-time and help support a family, but have no lobby. They received a lot of applause at the beginning of the corona pandemic, but so far nothing has really improved in their financial situation. This is where the marmot could bite itself.