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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 Europe

by Jolter 6y ago

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 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.

UK-Al05 6y ago
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.
- bildung 6y ago
  At least in Germany they are definitely paying less than other logistics companies. Do you have an example country where amazon pays more than the competitors?
  - UK-Al05 6y ago
    https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-15-hour-vows-lead-push-higher-u-s-minimum-wage/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-15-... A lot of people think they forced amazon take this action, but strategically its great for amazon if they can raise the minimum wage. It will force other people out of business before causes them issues. It's calculated. They deliver more items per unit of labour then anyone else. Collective bargain agreements are more difficult because its not national law. You can pay more but your competitors won't. But unions being unions will always ask for more if they think they can, even if they already pay well compared to other companies. Do you have information on how well they are paid in Germany? I can't find any information on it other than amazon stating they pay well. Companies are a lot smarter than people given them credit for. They use regulation to their own advantage, they're not against it. They will lobby for nice sounding regulation for PR reasons if they've calculated it harm others more then themselves. They just position themselves to take advantage of the regulation. Most of the time companies with large amounts of capital are best place to do this. It's the small companies that get screwed.
- Jolter 6y ago
  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.
  - UK-Al05 6y ago
    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.
- bkor 6y ago
  > Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Talking about automation and then the warehouse bit: Automation in warehouses is something that was in the news in Netherlands recently. Some supermarket opened an partly automated warehouse, the news brought it as something unique. From the comments it was clear that various other supermarkets did that already either years ago, recently or they have such more automated warehouses under construction. Apparently fully automated is very difficult. Having an automated warehouse isn't something that another company cannot do and/or requires unique expertise. Apparently various supermarkets hired the same company to build their warehouse.
  - UK-Al05 6y ago
    Automation is only a part of it. As you say an automated warehouse anyone can buy from an automated warehouse provider assuming they're big enough to afford it. It's about operational efficiency. It's the culture. Things like kaizen, optimising everything, having teams that work out exactly where the products should go etc etc. How should the packing stations be positioned, how should they be designed? What slows down the workers on the packing stations? Small improvements to the tools they every day. Constant small improvements everyday. Anyone should be able to suggest improvements. Try multiple experiments, most of them won't work. It builds up like a flywheel overtime, and then other companies won't be able to catch up. Companies try to replicate it, buts its harder then just buying a warehouse from company x. Frankly you need the leadership for it, and whole lot of time, money and patience for it to pay off.
Krisando 6y ago
> 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.
- Jolter 6y ago
  I wrote "may" on purpose. I also pointed out that France is notable.
bkor 6y ago
> I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French. Obviously I don't know Swedish labour law. What I'm after is something completely different: Amazon is able to operate in France just fine. I think France is NOT an easy country to operate in. Meaning, I think the article is not trying to pretend things are more difficult than they are in practice. Or: a non-story. The bits you mention about collective labour agreements also applies to e.g. Netherlands. It partly there to also prevent unfair competition. The prices might be a bit higher or something, but again, not really a story. It's interesting that other businesses restrict/block other companies. Within Netherlands the government (or at most a judge, possible due to unions) would ensure that such the company is forced to comply. If the article actually mentioned the details where Amazon might try to ignore it, then go into detail why it would backfire, that would add something interesting. At the moment the article is poor and a non-story.
hnarn 6y ago
> 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. I don't believe this is strictly true. The "fredsplikt" (lit. "Duty of Peace") only applies to members of a signing, or co-signing union. So while the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement apply to all employees, the "sacrifices" do not apply to members of, say, other unions that do not sign the agreement. The most common example of this in practice is "SAC Syndikalisterna". In practice though, strikes are unusual as they are a very ineffective means of negotiation unless very large, and therefore very expensive.

by Jolter 6y ago

UK-Al05 6y ago

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.

bildung 6y ago
At least in Germany they are definitely paying less than other logistics companies. Do you have an example country where amazon pays more than the competitors?
- UK-Al05 6y ago
  https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-15-hour-vows-lead-push-higher-u-s-minimum-wage/ https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-15-... A lot of people think they forced amazon take this action, but strategically its great for amazon if they can raise the minimum wage. It will force other people out of business before causes them issues. It's calculated. They deliver more items per unit of labour then anyone else. Collective bargain agreements are more difficult because its not national law. You can pay more but your competitors won't. But unions being unions will always ask for more if they think they can, even if they already pay well compared to other companies. Do you have information on how well they are paid in Germany? I can't find any information on it other than amazon stating they pay well. Companies are a lot smarter than people given them credit for. They use regulation to their own advantage, they're not against it. They will lobby for nice sounding regulation for PR reasons if they've calculated it harm others more then themselves. They just position themselves to take advantage of the regulation. Most of the time companies with large amounts of capital are best place to do this. It's the small companies that get screwed.
Jolter 6y ago
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.
- UK-Al05 6y ago
  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.
bkor 6y ago
> Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation. Talking about automation and then the warehouse bit: Automation in warehouses is something that was in the news in Netherlands recently. Some supermarket opened an partly automated warehouse, the news brought it as something unique. From the comments it was clear that various other supermarkets did that already either years ago, recently or they have such more automated warehouses under construction. Apparently fully automated is very difficult. Having an automated warehouse isn't something that another company cannot do and/or requires unique expertise. Apparently various supermarkets hired the same company to build their warehouse.
- UK-Al05 6y ago
  Automation is only a part of it. As you say an automated warehouse anyone can buy from an automated warehouse provider assuming they're big enough to afford it. It's about operational efficiency. It's the culture. Things like kaizen, optimising everything, having teams that work out exactly where the products should go etc etc. How should the packing stations be positioned, how should they be designed? What slows down the workers on the packing stations? Small improvements to the tools they every day. Constant small improvements everyday. Anyone should be able to suggest improvements. Try multiple experiments, most of them won't work. It builds up like a flywheel overtime, and then other companies won't be able to catch up. Companies try to replicate it, buts its harder then just buying a warehouse from company x. Frankly you need the leadership for it, and whole lot of time, money and patience for it to pay off.

Krisando 6y ago

> 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.

Jolter 6y ago
I wrote "may" on purpose. I also pointed out that France is notable.

bkor 6y ago

> I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French. Obviously I don't know Swedish labour law. What I'm after is something completely different: Amazon is able to operate in France just fine. I think France is NOT an easy country to operate in. Meaning, I think the article is not trying to pretend things are more difficult than they are in practice. Or: a non-story. The bits you mention about collective labour agreements also applies to e.g. Netherlands. It partly there to also prevent unfair competition. The prices might be a bit higher or something, but again, not really a story. It's interesting that other businesses restrict/block other companies. Within Netherlands the government (or at most a judge, possible due to unions) would ensure that such the company is forced to comply. If the article actually mentioned the details where Amazon might try to ignore it, then go into detail why it would backfire, that would add something interesting. At the moment the article is poor and a non-story.

hnarn 6y ago

> 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. I don't believe this is strictly true. The "fredsplikt" (lit. "Duty of Peace") only applies to members of a signing, or co-signing union. So while the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement apply to all employees, the "sacrifices" do not apply to members of, say, other unions that do not sign the agreement. The most common example of this in practice is "SAC Syndikalisterna". In practice though, strikes are unusual as they are a very ineffective means of negotiation unless very large, and therefore very expensive.