Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 149 posts

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

#131

Post by nabla9 »

alkonaut wrote: post #126

Agree that Amazon won't upend the Swedish labor market model. But do they really need to do that to operate with a healthy profit? And if they think they need to revolutionize the labor market to be profitable (enough), would they really establish a presence in Sweden then? My feeling is they'll establish a business like everyone else and not even try to pull a Toys'R'Us.

They don't because the Swedish and European union organization is not as confrontational in company level as US style enterprise bargaining is.

Sweden has mostly sectoral bargaining. Many/most things are negotiated between the unions and trade associations, not between union and individual enterprise. When Amazon sits to talk with unions (70% of workers belong to union), they discover that many things have been settled in a bigger table.

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

#132

Post by alkonaut »

redgc wrote: post #19
navidfarhadi wrote: post #9

I'm very interested to see how Amazon's entry into the Swedish market plays out. I used to shop a lot on Amazon back when I lived in the SF Bay Area and thought I would miss it when I moved to Stockholm but honestly that has not been the case. I get 1-2 day shipping from other online retailers in Sweden anyway (like CDON and Webhallen) and there is quite fierce competition between a few of the bigger names in the gam…

I always attempt to shop from Amazon Germany because (a) larger variety of items, and (b) I feel I can trust the reviews there. Have you found Swedish e-commerce sites to have enough reliable reviews to buy anything with confidence, or do you tend to buy products that you can find reviews of elsewhere? I joke to my wife, "If 500 Germans say it's good, I'm sold"

I never read a review on a site that sells anything. I just google "productname review" and find something in depth and trustworthy.

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

#133

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

gohbgl wrote: post #130

Thanks to strong unions and labor laws Sweden is the worker's paradise and everybody has a great job. If Amazon wants to entice people to work for them then they must make a better offer than all* existing employers. What is there for the unions to negotiate? Please don't bash me for the cynicism. I am trying to figure out the logic behind all of this. * edit: What meant say is that Amazon must offer a job that's bet…

“The Swedish model” is to put laws like this in place mostly to level the negotiation positions of the parties. What rules to actually apply is expected to be negotiated between the unions and the employers on top of that.

(As a side note the current government is actually just about to abolish one of the corner stones of those laws (“LAS”, the law of employment protection). Due to a deal they cut with the opposition parties in order to be allowed to form government)

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

#134

Post by spanhandler »

mongol wrote: post #115
eckesicle wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

Did banks really refuse to process their transactions? That is union overreach I would say.

Overreach in what sense? What's... I dunno, standard-length reach for labor action?

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

#135

Post by donarb »

mongol wrote: post #115
eckesicle wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tr…

Did banks really refuse to process their transactions? That is union overreach I would say.

Not overreach, it's solidarity.

As was stated in the article, there is no government mandated minimum wage in Sweden as most jobs that would be covered under a minimum wage are negotiated union wages. Union members looking out for other union members, that way all workers benefit in the end.

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

#136

Post by xorcist »

gohbgl wrote: post #130

Thanks to strong unions and labor laws Sweden is the worker's paradise and everybody has a great job. If Amazon wants to entice people to work for them then they must make a better offer than all* existing employers. What is there for the unions to negotiate? Please don't bash me for the cynicism. I am trying to figure out the logic behind all of this. * edit: What meant say is that Amazon must offer a job that's bet…

Sweden hasn't got as many labor laws as you would imagine. There are no minimum wages, for instance. It's all "voluntary" agreements with the unions. Pretty standard things though, limits on wages, work hours and such.

These agreements are not so much voluntary of course, since without an agreement in place it's hard to do any business in the country at all. Some try out of stubbornness but it's just an expensive way to accomplish nothing.

The alternative would be meddling politicians and nobody wants that. Unions are expected to have a bit more domain knowledge, and these agreements are re-negotiated every few years to get rid of obsolete rules and introduce new ones.

It helps that the labor unions are centralized, professionalized, and has vested interests in the long term survival of the companies they regulate, because of the trust required to make it work. If it is a good system I do not know, but it does provide for a stable labor market with almost no strikes, for which an agreement is a small price to pay.

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

#137

Post by ldng »

UK-Al05 wrote: post #90
ldng wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And why do you think they were threaten ? Because they were found not operating within the bound of pandemic related decrees. They willing did not respect them. Maybe in the USA they would have automatically been fined, but the French negotiated with them and gave them delays. The French Amazon CEO willfully claimed they would never comply. They knew what they were doing and in practice quite literally put themselves above the law.

And no, Amazon has the same catalog as other French retailer, at least in France. Amazon just chose to play dumb with both catalog filtering demands AND physical distances in warehouses.

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

#138

Post by ldng »

temp667 wrote: post #128
ldng wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The fines were enormous for every violation, and EU courts have been doing billion dollar fines of these companies - why in the world would you operate one warehouse doing 10% volume (90% shutdown already) facing huge fines? They complied with the law and shut down. This further limited covid risks for their workers.

No, they were caught not complying with the law and were threaten with fines. At which point they decided to finally comply with the law by shutting down. BIG difference.

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

#139

Post by mongol »

donarb wrote: post #135
mongol wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did banks really refuse to process their transactions? That is union overreach I would say.

Not overreach, it's solidarity. As was stated in the article, there is no government mandated minimum wage in Sweden as most jobs that would be covered under a minimum wage are negotiated union wages. Union members looking out for other union members, that way all workers benefit in the end.

Should the tax office employees not process their tax declaration either? I mean, solidarity.

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

#140

Post by oxymoron »

CuriousSkeptic wrote: post #133
gohbgl wrote: post #130

Thanks to strong unions and labor laws Sweden is the worker's paradise and everybody has a great job. If Amazon wants to entice people to work for them then they must make a better offer than all* existing employers. What is there for the unions to negotiate? Please don't bash me for the cynicism. I am trying to figure out the logic behind all of this. * edit: What meant say is that Amazon must offer a job that's bet…

“The Swedish model” is to put laws like this in place mostly to level the negotiation positions of the parties. What rules to actually apply is expected to be negotiated between the unions and the employers on top of that. (As a side note the current government is actually just about to abolish one of the corner stones of those laws (“LAS”, the law of employment protection). Due to a deal they cut with the opposition…

I’m not sure it’s really a corner stone. Saltsjöbadsavtalen and the Swedish model of collective bargaining came much earlier. Amuingly, LAS was introduced by a liberal goverment against the protests of the social democrats who felt that it infringed on the bargaining power of the unions.
Post reply on HN