Several hundred workers yesterday held a one-hour warning strike at Amazon’s distribution centreat Bad Hersfeld, its largest facility in Germany, to protest at low wages and poor working
conditions.The Verdi union claimed that 600 staff stopped work after fruitless talks with the companythe previous day. “Amazon is staying tough and does not want to negotiate,” the union claimed.According to Verdi, the pay levels at Bad Hersfeld, in central Germany, where some 3,700 workersare employed, are the lowest of any of its eight facilities in the country.
The working conditions at Amazon’s facilities in Bad Hersfeld came under the spotlight in adocumentary on German television in February this year which criticised poor treatment of seasonalforeign workers.
The stoppage at Bad Hersfeld follows last week’s strike vote at the Amazon facility at Leipzig,in eastern Germany, where staff are also unhappy about wages and working conditions. The startingpay there is €9.30 per hour, according to Verdi, which wants a minimum wage level of €10.66 perhour. No dates have been announced yet for any stoppages at the Leipzig facility, which employs1,200 full-time staff and some 800 temporary contract workers.
Verdi wants Amazon to pay staff the higher wage levels of the retail sector while the companyargues that staff are logistics workers and should therefore be paid at the lower level of thatindustry. In total, Amazon employs about 9,000 staff at its eight German logistics centres inAugsburg, Leipzig, Rheinberg, Werne, Prforzheim, Koblenz and two facilities in Bad Hersfeld.
