After strikes at several other Amazon sites have also laid down in the night to Tuesday employees in Leipzig. With the beginning of the night shift, they had started a 24-hour standout, Ver.di said. Strike leader Thomas Schneider said he expects around 400 employees to join the strike.
On Monday, the union had already in Bad Hersfeld (Hesse), Rheine and Werne (both North Rhine-Westphalia) and Koblenz (Rhineland-Palatinate) called for a strike. The labor dispute is thus aimed at the profitable business before Easter. Amazon reiterated that the strikes had no impact on punctual deliveries because the majority of staff came to work.
With the strike in Leipzig, the workforce is fighting "for healthier working conditions, for respect and recognition - and for a collective agreement," Ver.di said. "It stinks like rotten eggs when the management of public health and safety speaks," said strike leader Schneider. In reality, "illness-related layoffs, outsourcing management instead of maintaining the work on the site up to the breakaways" on the agenda.
For years, Ver.di has been calling for Amazon employees to be paid according to retail tariffs. Amazon rejects this so far and emphasizes again and again, in its logistics centers are paid at the top of what is customary for comparable activities. The online retailer has twelve warehouses in eleven logistics locations in Germany and employs about 13,000 permanent employees.