Very early in the morning there was trouble, says Verdi spokeswoman Sylwia Lech. The police came by because the strikers had taken up a few parking spaces. Lech can still get upset about the mission later, around 7.30 in the morning. But the strike continues, of course, and now the Amazon employees are standing right in front of the entrance at the Graben logistics center just outside of Augsburg and where a few bicycles are stored. Around 300 employees are on strike here for a collective agreement, as are colleagues at other locations throughout Germany. The mood between management and workers is quite tense, as shown not only by the fact that the police have been alerted.
The working conditions at Amazon have been criticized for years, only a few weeks ago Verdi in Graben called a strike: the working conditions should be secured by collective agreements. In focus: the break regulations. Several strikers say on Wednesday morning in front of the gate of the huge distribution center that they have a 35-minute break. As soon as the gong sounds, they start marching. If the gong sounds again, they should already be back at work in the warehouse. “Of the 35 minutes, five minutes go to the way to the canteen, then five minutes to the way back, and then you have to wait in line for a long time and at the end you only have time to gobble down the food for a moment,” says one of the strikers. A relaxing break looks different, they complain here. Especially since superiors apparently check exactly who is late. “Recently someone even stopped who was in the toilet for how long,” says another employee. “It’s more relaxed in jail.”
None of the strikers want to read his name in the newspaper. “That would cause a lot of trouble,” they are sure of here. But they say that some of them have been working at the Amazon location for more than ten years. At the end of the month, they still only have 1700 to 1800 euros net, maybe a bit more depending on the tax bracket. “You can’t feed a family with that,” says a father with four children. There is a Christmas bonus of 400 euros gross. According to Verdi, the incomes of employees are often several hundred euros below those of their colleagues in comparable collectively agreed companies due to longer working hours and low or no special payments such as Christmas and holiday bonuses. The aim is therefore the recognition of the collective bargaining agreements in retail and mail order. So far, however, Verdi spokeswoman Lech has not identified a willingness to talk to those responsible for Amazon.
The company considers itself a good employer
A company spokesman announced that employees at Amazon Graben earn 12.42 euros gross to get started plus extras. After twelve and 24 months, the salary increases automatically. From Amazon’s point of view, a “fair wage” with “attractive additional benefits”https://www.sueddeutsche.de/bayern/.”We are a good employer even without a collective agreement.” The company also cannot understand the criticism of the break regulation. In addition to the canteen, it is said on request that there are decentralized break rooms in the building that are equipped with refrigerators, microwaves, machines, table football and other games. “These can be easily reached from the workplace in a very short time.”
The strikers also report that the work targets cannot be achieved. 250 items of goods would have to be stored per person per hour, and 350 items would even have to be made available for dispatch. “Anyone who manages to do that at all will be completely exhausted afterwards,” say the employees. Amazon states that “productivity benchmarks are set according to objective criteria and evaluated over longer periods of time”. This is not satisfactory for Verdi and the strikers: They therefore extended the strike on Wednesday until the end of the week.