What a weird article. Loads of international companies operate in countries with wildly different laws, standards of living, disposable income, etc. Why compare Sweden with a Polish warehouse workers and not investigate how e.g. Amazon.fr operates? That country at least goes on strike significantly more often (probably more so than the rest of the EU combined). Meaning, one year I noticed them on strike every other w…
Sweden is a little unique in that we have fewer strikes than most European countries. The reason is the "fredsplikt": as long as there is a collective bargaining agreement in place, if a worker goes on strike they can be legally laid off for shirking work.
So, strikes will only happen at most every two-three years when the current agreement expires. And while then there may be a threat of strike, it seldom comes to that.
In contrast, in most contries (notably France), unions may do "political strikes" to express opinions.
Amazon won't be worried about their Swedish employees unpredictably going on strike for better terms. They will be worrying about having to agree to the same collective agreement as competing businesses. They will not get to push salaries lower than others, or squeeze slightly more hours or shorter breaks. So, they will have to look forward to their profits coming from economy of scale and not mistreatment of their warehouse workers. They will not be able to keep prices 10% lower than competitors while keeping the same profit margin, the way they do in the U.S.
Until they sign an agreement, workers at other companies will likely put them under blockade, which means truckers from suppliers will refuse to ship to Amazon's Swedish warehouse; Postal workers will not pick up shipments to consumers; Caterers and conference centres won't service management meetings; Electricians will not service their warehouse; Garbage will not get picked up, etc. They can do some of this themselves, instead, but that's a very high threshold to cross on day 1.