In Germany, Union Culture Clashes With Amazon’s Labor Practices
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In the United States, technology giants like Amazon are often celebrated as fonts of innovation and jobs.
President Obama at an Amazon distribution center last week. He was later criticized, as many Amazon jobs pay $11 an hour.
But across the Atlantic — nein, non, no.
Even as President Obama spoke about middle-class jobs last week at an Amazon warehouse in Tennessee, Amazon was facing strikes at warehouses in Germany, its second-biggest market. Unions there say the company has imported American-style business practices — in particular, an antipathy to organized labor — that stand at odds with European norms.
“In Germany, the idea that warehouse workers are going to be getting opposition from an employer when it comes to the right to organize, that’s virtually unheard-of,” said Marcus Courtney, a technology and communications department head at Uni Global Union, a federation of trade unions based in Nyon, Switzerland. “It puts Amazon out in left field.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/business/workers-of-amazon-divergent.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0