When I read about the enterprising young bookseller trying to set up an Internet business I immediately signed up and started ordering English books, something which was complicated and expensive to do from Germany before Amazon offered their services. They were quick, never failed and never cheated, shipping costs nil, and the mark-up was negligible compared to what you had to pay in other bookshops: sometimes more than 200 percent for publications ordered from the US.
Everything seemed perfect, until they became big and you heard what they are actually about. Trying to shut out unions and avoid labor contracts? Get the fuck out of Germany if you can't compete with other mail-order businesses in an orderly fashion. Businesses that actually have qualified managers who know the law and are able to deal with worker's representatives. As soon as I realized what was going on in their slave factories, I stopped ordering from Amazon.
This latest story about employing foreign "loan" workers at minimum wages, holding them in low-budget holiday colonies (constructed for summer vacations) during the winter months, under the supervision of neo-Nazis, it really takes the cake. From what I have read, the situation and atmosphere in their warehouses is not much different, though, even for the minuscule proportion of workers with ordinary, unlimited contracts. Extremely low pay, if any, no Christmas allowance, only 24 days of leave (legal minimum), it is a shame that this firm is still allowed to operate here. And this is without even mentioning their practices towards publishers and suppliers.
Thanks for posting the story!
= new reply since forum marked as read
