
An idea
Could they not just move the depot from Bad Hersfeld to Good Hersfeld, this solving all their problems at a stroke.
I'm available for management consultancy work, at reasonable prices, should Mr Bezos need me...
Hundreds of workers at web bazaar Amazon’s central depot in Germany have walked out on strike in protest over working conditions and pay. Around 500 people protested on Tuesday at the box-crammers' Bad Hersfeld site, which is one of seven distribution points in the country. It is the first time Amazon workers have launched …
There was a big scandal here over Christmas and New Year, with the national TV station reporting on conditions there. The seasonal workers were flown in, with the promise of good wages, then forced to sign a contract for half that, or pay for their own flight back home...
Then there was the security, they would frisk workers as they left the warehouse (not totally unknown in other copanies and industries), but the security would also rifle through the workers rooms in the holiday village that Amazon used to house the workers.
Transport was also once per shift, which meant if you weren't out of the warehouse puntucally, you would have to wait several hours for the next bus back to the holiday village...
I don't know what permanent employees earn.
There's going to be a lot of Spanish seasonal workers replaced by Rumanians in a big warehouse in Bad Hersfeld.
I saw that documentary and it was hair-raising. Systematic, brutish abuse of staff. Every conceivable loophole in the law being used to cheat and rob people who were in no position to argue.
In my forty-odd years of dealing with them one thing I have learned is that the Germans believe in a fair day's work for a fair day's pay, so these sorts of shenanigans (which have been standard practice in the UK for decades - see recent pieces on UK TV news about zero hours contracts) did indeed cause revulsion amongst the populace there.
Not to mention disgust in my house. My opinion of Amazon was radically influenced, not in a positive way.
@CaptSmegHead: Here's the video. (How's your German?)
...to get germans to strike.
It takes even more to get casual workers of any nationality (usuallly non-unionised) to strike.
They must be pretty pissed off.
WRT the heatstroke story: There is no legal maximum temperature for British Workplaces. Several offices at $orkplace regularly exceed 42C (100F) in summer. I'm surprised noone here has been a victim.
Yes, temperatures in factories and kitchens do regularly exceed 38c/100f but the law states that any time a worker feels their health is in danger (such as feeling dehydrated in this case) their supervisor must allow them to recover before putting them back to work. Something the supervisors involved in the warehouse incident denied the workers.
I was a US customer of Amazon until 2012 (about $25,000 USD total in that time). After I heard about workers in Pennsylvania being forced to work in the extreme heat, to the point that a local emergency room physician finally blew the whistle and reported Amazon to the U.S. Occupational and Health Administration, I decided I would never spend another penny at Amazon.
I applaud the German workers and wish that all Americans would stand up for their fellows by boycotting Amazon for life, as I have.