![]() ![]() Since then, the unions’ strategy has been to extend this agreement to other areas, especially bonuses, health and safety, and information rights. The result was union recognition by management and the stipulation of a plant-level collective agreement on working time and night shifts. It took five years to unionize the first group of workers there, and in 2017, it was home to Italy’s first Amazon strike. The earliest organizing took place at the Piacenza fulfillment center, opened in 2011. In the past, the different working conditions in different parts of the logistical chain, as well as the different levels of union organization, had prevented any such nationwide strike. Therefore, we believe that the correct interlocutors are the suppliers of delivery services, as well as the business associations that represent them.” The three unions blamed the company for the collapsednegotiations and declared a national strike - involving not only drivers but the entire national distribution network. It issued a statement insisting that “for deliveries to customers, Amazon Logistics uses third-party suppliers. ![]() The negotiations blew up two weeks ago at a meeting where the company refused to recognize its social responsibility toward subcontracted drivers. Despite unions’ optimism that they could negotiate traditional industrial relations in the firm, social dialogue turned out to be a dialogue of the deaf. But, consistent with its classic strategy, Amazon worked to buy time rather than respond to union demands. In Italy, trade unions still enjoy relatively strong institutional power: total membership is among the highest in Europe and unions are still influential in policy making. The company could not have refused all discussion. Yet the company made no concrete commitments on their specific demands, centered on a company-level collective agreement on working conditions, health and safety, work intensity, schedules, bonuses, and meal vouchers. After two meetings back in January, unions expressed satisfaction that a discussion was underway. ![]() The strike was called on March 10, after the sudden breaking off of negotiations between Amazon Italia Logistics (a subsidiary running operations in seven Italian fulfillment centers) and the logistics branch of the CGIL, CISL, and UIL union confederations. Yet the struggle also needs to be extended, including to the international level, if it is to really hit Amazon’s logistics operations and push back against the company’s most exploitative practices. Decisively, it also included the drivers, who are outsourced and not recognized as Amazon employees, even though they work under the direct control of its algorithms.Ĭlaiming 75 percent participation, the one-day strike thus represented a historic moment for the labor movement - and for Amazon itself. The strike day was particularly historic because it involved all Amazon logistics workers, from warehouse employees to delivery drivers.Īn obvious key focus for the strike was Amazon’s large distribution centers (“fulfillment centers”) where thousands of goods are stocked, picked, and packed, yet the strike extended to the mid-range sortation centers (where boxes are dispatched) and the small “last mile” delivery stations. In the first nationwide strike in the company’s history, workers mounted picket lines to protest exhausting work rates, despotic management-by-algorithm, and the company’s lack of accountability to its hires. A year into a pandemic that has put them under ever more strain, yesterday, Amazon workers held a twenty-four-hour strike across Italy. ![]()
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