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Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

politico.eu

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Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#81

Post by eckesicle »

Krisando wrote: post #74
eckesicle wrote: post #29

I think the union rep from Handels is correct. They'll get Amazon to cave. Amazon is the quintessential hill to die on for the unions and the labour laws are incredibly strong in Sweden. Here's how I think it might play out if Amazon refuses to sign: - Handels requests collective bargaining - Amazon declines but are sued in court and loses (you are required to bargain) - Negotiations fail and Amazon refuses to sign -…

> They'll get Amazon to cave. I'm not so sure, and I'll explain why below on one of your points. > in the end garbage collectors will refuse to pick up garbage at their warehouse. Electricians will refuse to service their warehouse. Plumbers will not plumb. Workers, builders, postmen etc will all simply stop servicing Amazon. Companies that deal with Amazon can also be put in a blockade. Outside of employing builders…

You absolutely have a point but I also think that you perhaps don't have the social or historical context to understand how deeply rooted unions are in Swedish society.

The Toysrus strike has been mentioned and at the time the unions did not even use all means at their disposal.

In the event of a general strike bus drivers could well refuse to stop at bus stops servicing the warehouse. Banks will refuse to process transactions for the company. Members will refuse to give them their business (4 million or so out of the total 10 million population). All of this happened to Toysrus.

Nearly 90% of workers in the country are members of a union and most will follow a general boycott if urged to do so.

There really isn't much of a choice here. They don't have to sign an agreement, but they certainly will not be profitable unless they do.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#82

Post by Jolter »

negamax wrote: post #32
MattGaiser wrote: post #4

Amazon is the kind of company to instead build high speed hovercraft and base them in Poland or park a large warehouse offshore.

They also need to account for safety of goods and stability of their assets and operations. So they will need stable political climate to operate.

I presume you mean they are unlikely to open a fulfillment center in Iraq (or even Lebanon). If you're pointing the finger at Sweden as being difficult, I'm not sure what you mean by "stable political climate". The country has been more or less run by social democrats since the early 20th century, with periods of liberal/conservative majorities interspersed.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#83

Post by Jolter »

encom wrote: post #80
dybber wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the same tradition of strong unions in Denmark.

We do, but it has been eroded somewhat, especially by the "yellow" unions, that aren't unions at all.

Has any "yellow" union been formed yet, though? Link?

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#84

Post by Jolter »

guerrilla wrote: post #78
jeltz wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would they be able to leverage demand? I can't see our politicians wanting to get involved in this fight, especially not on Amazon's side. Why would they want to support Amazon against both unions and againast Swedish companies? I think they will just remove themselves from the conflict and let it play out. I can't see a scenario where Amazon does not have to agree to collective bargaining.

Swedish naiveté always amazes me.

Feel free to explain a plausible scenario where Amazon wins an all-out fight with the unions, then.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#85

Post by AnssiH »

Semaphor wrote: post #79
AnssiH wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m not sure we have co-mingling here We do, the seller setting for that ("Barcode preference") is there in the Seller Central Europe and the help text explicitly talks about commingling.

Thanks. Do you know why the counterfeit problem does not seem as much of a problem here?

No idea. I haven't experienced that either and I use amazon.de a lot.

I've had one item sold by Amazon as new that was clearly a fraud return, though, i.e. the item inside the product package was switched for a different model.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#86

Post by Jolter »

Krisando wrote: post #69
Jolter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French. 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…

> In contrast, in most contries (notably France), unions may do "political strikes" to express opinions. Comparing any European country to France for striking is a bit absurd honestly. Political strikes to express opinions is not really common in most European countries. It happens, rarely.

I wrote "may" on purpose. I also pointed out that France is notable.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#87

Post by Jolter »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #51
Jolter wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French. 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…

Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Amazon actually lobbies for higher salaries, it hurts the competitors who don't use as much automation and are not great at operational efficiency. It's a myth the amazon pay low salaries. They they just optimise the heck out of everything. It's pretty smart in many ways, as its great PR and destroys your competitors if its national law.

I consider automation to be part of "economy of scale".

I don't think salary levels are necessarily the chief way Amazon squeezes their workers harder than competitors - you're right that their minimum wage in the US is higher than the law mandates - but I would also love to see evidence of what their competition is paying. I'd bet they're not on the federal minimum wage, either!

It's not all automation though! Amazon is notorious for extreme work pressure. Too few and too short breaks, for example. This will absolutely not fly in Sweden. Not adapting properly to COVID-19 is another example of putting profits before working conditions.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#88

Post by ldng »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #75
josefx wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That the "essential products list" does not exist, which is the key complaint in any discussion about this. Amazon invented a requirement that does not exist to claim that the requirements are to vague to implement. The list the court provided is explicit in the court documents, meanwhile the "essential products" is subject to the imagination of every armchair free market capitalist. You wont find it googling, you wo…

What requirements did they place on amazon then?

The French government placed on Amazon, AND every other online sellers, restrictions on what type of product could be sold: only first necessity items. The only one refusing to comply, and loudly at that, was Amazon.

Put itself above the law to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable to me. And now they are making a lot of publicity on tv to remend the damage. A little too late, I'm boycotting them personally.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#89

Post by UK-Al05 »

Jolter wrote: post #87
UK-Al05 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Amazon actually lobbies for higher salaries, it hurts the competitors who don't use as much automation and are not great at operational efficiency. It's a myth the amazon pay low salaries. They they just optimise the heck out of everything. It's pretty smart in many ways, as its great PR and destroys your competitors if its national law.

I consider automation to be part of "economy of scale". I don't think salary levels are necessarily the chief way Amazon squeezes their workers harder than competitors - you're right that their minimum wage in the US is higher than the law mandates - but I would also love to see evidence of what their competition is paying. I'd bet they're not on the federal minimum wage, either! It's not all automation though! Amazo…

I don't think amazon will have problem with this as long as the competition play by the same rules.

If its the same rules, amazon will just use its huge amount of capital investment to gain those advantages instead. As it does now. In fact it will in Amazons advantage to raise conditions for entire country if it can.

The problem comes when governments intervene to disadvantage foreign companies over native companies to provide an advantage.

Re: Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

#90

Post by UK-Al05 »

ldng wrote: post #88
UK-Al05 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What requirements did they place on amazon then?

The French government placed on Amazon, AND every other online sellers, restrictions on what type of product could be sold: only first necessity items. The only one refusing to comply, and loudly at that, was Amazon. Put itself above the law to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable to me. And now they are making a lot of publicity on tv to remend the damage. A little too late, I'm boycotting them personally.

It didn't put itself above the law, because it closed down instead. That's complying with the law. Considering the amount fines they we're threatned with, I agree it was too risky operate. They would have only had to made a few mistakes and they would risk a massive fine.

Amazon has a huge catalog compared to other retailers, and trying to categorise that without mistakes would be difficult and prone to errors.

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