As Amazon expands into Poland and the Czech Republic, it hopes its workers won't make unions. "In terms of unions themselves, we don't see a need for that," Tim Collins, director of Amazon's EU logistics operations, tells The Financial Times' beyondbrics blog (registration required). He adds, "Any friction that gets between us and our associates slows down innovation, slows down change, slows down improvements on the shop floor, and we don't see that as being good at all." Marek Lewandowski, a spokesperson for the Polish trade union Solidarity, tells the FT: "It's up to the workers to organize themselves, but we're here to help. Amazon won't scare us off." In Germany, thousands of Amazon workers recently went on strike over a pay dispute.
Amazon’s Christmas season was marked by labor unrest at its German warehouses, and as the US retail giant expands into central Europe, building five centres in Poland and the Czech Republic, it is hoping that unions do not follow.
“In terms of unions themselves, we don’t see a need for that,” Tim Collins, director for Amazon´s EU logistics operations, told beyondbrics. “Any friction that gets between us and our associates slows down innovation, slows down change, slows down improvements on the shop floor, and we don’t see that as being good at all.”
However, the Solidarity labour union, heir to the organisation that helped end communism in Poland, plans to support any unionisation drive among Amazon’s Polish workers.
“It’s up to the workers to organise themselves, but we’re here to help,” says Marek Lewandowski, a Solidarity spokesman. “Amazon won’t scare us off.” Despite Poland’s union heritage, only about 12 per cent of workers belong to unions, largely in older heavy industries. The Czech Republic has a higher level of unionisation, at about 17 per cent.
About 15 per cent of Amazon’s 9,000 permanent German workers went on strike over the Christmas season, complaining about low pay and demanding collective bargaining rights – garnering bad publicity for the company.
As German labour troubles have grown, Amazon is shifting a significant part of its operations to central Europe, where workers are cheaper and even less unionised than in western Europe. Average wages for Polish non-agricultural workers are 3,898 zlotys ($1,270) a month, about a quarter of the rate in Germany.
Amazon is planning to open two warehouse centres in Poland and two in the Czech Republic by late this year, with a third Polish centre to open next year. In total, the central and eastern European (CEE) warehouses will employ 10,000 permanent workers, ramped up by an additional 15,000 during the holiday rush.
Amazon has no retail presence in either country, although it does plan to open websites there in the future, so the warehouses are geared at the west European market.
“The existing thrust will be the growth of our core network today, which is primarily west. And going forward it will be in indigenous markets and to the east,” says Collins.
The CEE investments were made possible thanks to the flood of EU structural funds, which has allowed both countries to build modern highways connecting them to the west. There is still work to be done on linking to the east, and on north-south ties that would make transport easier between Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
“The infrastructure development was a big factor in helping us finally make that decision,” says Collins, who adds that more CEE centres “are on the radar” for Amazon.
With unemployment of 13 per cent in Poland, and 8.2 per cent in the Czech Republic, which has only just exited from a long recession, union organisers will have their work cut out for them in getting Amazon workers to join, admits Lewandowski.
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