Workers at six Amazon facilities in Germany will stage a strike on Monday to vent their ire on health and safety after several workers at logistics centers have tested positive for coronavirus, the Verdi Labor Union announced.
On Sunday, Verdi disclosed that the strike would last at least 48 hours under the slogan 'Safe and Healthy Job' to protest what the workers describe as lack of transparency by Amazon after staff were found to have contracted the virus.
According to Verdi representative Orhan Akman, they have knowledge that at least 30 to 40 of their colleagues were infected, Reuters reported.
The American retail giant has faced a long-running dispute in Germany over better salaries and working conditions for logistics employees, who have staged strikes since 2013.
Amazon warehouse employees in the US have protested over what they say are unsafe working conditions in recent months, and in several cities walked off from their duties. Workers lambasted Amazon for failing to notify them when colleagues have the virus.
A group of three New York Amazon warehouse staff filed a lawsuit against the company earlier this month, alleging they and their families were at risk of contracting the virus.
The strikes are planned for Amazon's facilities in Bad Hersfeld, Rheinberg, Leipzig, Koblenz and Werne, Reuters disclosed. Germany is the retail behemoth's second largest market next to the US.
According to Akman, who is in charge of retail and mail-order industries in the union, they are ramping up the momentum because Amazon is not "showing at this point any insight and endangering the health of workers in favor of profit," DW reported, with updates from AFP and Reuters.
In the US, at least seven Amazon plant employees have perished from COVID-19 since the crisis started. Amazon rejected the allegations in a statement and claimed that as of June the company had allocated $4 billion on safety measures to protect its employees and customers worldwide from the risk of coronavirus infections.
In Germany, Amazon has ordered 470 million hand sanitizing bottles, 21 million pairs of gloves, 19 million face masks and other protection gear, including 39 million boxes of disinfection wipes since February, an Amazon representative in Germany divulged.
In April, the US retail giant was forced to shut down six distribution facilities in France after a court decided the company was not doing enough to protect its workers. Amazon has 13,000 regular staff in Germany that work at 13 logistic hubs, as well as contractual workers.
