Amazon’s long-lasting labour conflict in Germany raises issues far beyond wages and working conditions. Amazon needs to accept to negotiate with ver.di and to respect European and German working life culture.
The American e-commerce giant refuses to negotiate a collective agreement with ver.di which is the Amazon workers’ trade union, a leading member of Germany’s powerful trade union confederation DGB. According to the union, they make extensive use of time limited employment contracts also when there is no reason for it, and when workers stay quite permanently in their positions. Many wages and other benefits remain below general collective agreement levels even if the workers’ action has already forced management to make some concessions.
Strikes are usually about much more than wages only. For workers to go on strike is a difficult decision and today’s trade unions both know and respect this. The unions know very well that a protracted conflict leads to serious income losses that require a long time to recover, however ‘good’ the result. Here, the workers and their union stand up in defence of German and European social dialogue and collective agreement cultures.
This is not the first time that a U.S. based company wants to play its own game in Europe instead of respecting the rules. Toys”R”Us tried it a few decades ago until it was driven out of Sweden. Wal-Mart got it wrong in Germany, suffered for a few years, and pulled back.
Amazon needs to accept that their German workforce is well organised. They must be prepared to negotiate a collective agreement in good faith, fully respecting International Labour Conventions. In the longer run they will not be able to import an authoritarian human resource management in a culture and environment where social dialogue is widely supported. Many leading German politicians have joined in calling on the company to start negotiating with ver.di and putting an end to this conflict.
This is an example of a large employer forcing a labour conflict by its own behaviour. If the workers and their union would accept management’s refusal to enter into social dialogue and collective agreement negotiations the entire labour relations system could come under pressure.
Not only trade unions should be concerned. Competing employers who approach their workers and their trade unions responsibly have an equal interest to defend themselves. This is shared by society as a whole, particularly in times when social unrest and political instability are increasing also in Europe.
It is no wonder that behaviour like this easily drives polarisation and aggressiveness instead of promoting social dialogue and even cooperation. This will not help Europe to get out of the crisis.