Higher wages and compensations for night work
In the central warehouse in Leipzig about 500
of the 2,000 employees joined the strike. In Bad Hersfeld, where Amazon has two
distribution centres, several hundreds followed. Amazon employs about 9,000
people in total in Germany.
In their first year employees of Amazon in
Leipzig get 9.30 euro per hour, after that year it gets raised to 10 euro. The
worker’s union wants a minimum wage of 10.66 euro for Leipzig. In Bad Hersfeld the company
pays 9.83 euro per hour; there the union wants about 12 euro and a compensation
for night work.
Improvement working atmosphere
The workers also want an improvement of the
working conditions. Recently a television show caused some fuss when it
revealed that workers of Amazon – among them a lot of immigrants – were watched
by security guards with Nazi sympathies.
Germany is the most important market for Amazon
outside the United States. The company saw its sales rise in that country by
20% last year, to 6.8 billion euro.
