• 11 years ago
• Posted in:Uncategorized
• 0
• Author: bryanchow358

In Germany, a total of 2,000 workers from four of Amazon’s distribution centers, were unsatisfied with their wages and went on a strike, as Ver.di the retail and service worker union demanding for higher wages and fair labor condition for Amazon workers. Eventually, Amazon has given in to the pressure from the strike and agreed to raise worker’s wages by 2 to 3%.

This is a good example of how strong a trade union like Ver.di can be. It is clear that the company is concern that the strike would worsen certain aspects for the company, such as productivity or corporate image.

In this case the negative effect from the strike may not be significant since the strike didn’t affect much on Amazon’s operation or demand, but taking it to extremes, the damage to the company can be severe. For example, two years ago in Hong Kong, there is a serious strike with over a thousand six hundred, from Watsons Water Company, where workers were also unsatisfied with the lack of delivery workers, yet outsourcing to other company instead, demotivating the workers. The strike caused serious decrease in monthly commission for Watsons Water; sever lack of delivery workers to transport their water to costumers, leading to fall in revenue and not meeting the demand for their water. Even though the company is willing to offer more welfare to their workers, trade union was not please with the company and continued with the strike.

The bargaining power of the trade union can be very powerful, since workers are the main source of workforce for companies operation, they cannot function without workers. In addition, according to Herzberg ‘two factor theory’, worker’s feeling or satisfaction comes from the work itself, so that means with more satisfaction from the workplace, they would perform better for the company and help companies’ operation, leading to higher profit eventually; therefore it is important to motivate the workers. Such as the case with Amazon, their agreement with Ver.di is a rather quick yet smart move for Amazon to react to the strike, as it can prevent the situation from worsening like what happened to Watsons Water (even though Amazon is a much larger company with over 9000 full-time workers), yet also improves the hygiene factor and motivates workers so the company can function better without worrying internal problems.

While trade union can be persuasive and form better Communication Bridge between the company and workers, however it may worsen corporate culture within Amazon as the union said ‘it would keep up the strikes but acknowledged that it was in for a long fight’. Despite this time the scale of damage isn’t significant, Amazon should still beware of how employee feels and find ways to motivate them as seen in this incidence that there is an increasing trend of dissatisfied employees  and Amazon should expect more of these strikes coming in the future.

References:

• Eddy, Melissa. “Amazon Workers Walk Off the Job in Germany Over Wage Dispute.” Bits Amazon Workers Walk Off the Job in Germany Over Wage Dispute Comments. N.p., 22 Sept. 2014. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/22/amazon-workers-walk-off-the-job-in-germany-over-wage-dispute/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0>.
• Lee, Ada. “Striking Students March through Central as Police Say Protest Is Illegal.” South China Morning Post. N.p., 13 July 2013. Web. 24 Sept. 2014. <http://www.scmp.com/article/1006619/watsons-workers-set-stay-strike>.