unionizing amazon dotcom
MichaelP
GUARDIAN (Lonson) Thursday December 7, 2000
The internet's new economy still has the old problems, Seumas Milne
reports
Unions aim to swallow Amazon
The dot.com economy is supposed to have left behind trade unions and
collective negotiation. But initial skirmishes between managers and union
organisers at the internet giant Amazon.com in recent weeks suggest the
workings of the new economy may turn out to be more familiar than
previously imagined.
In the electronic retailer's home base of Seattle, union organisers from
the Communication Workers of America have been busy signing up Amazon
customer service reps, while across the US the United Food and Commercial
Workers Union is drumming up support among the thousands who parcel up and
send out the books and CDs ordered from Amazon on the internet.
Parallel recruitment drives have also been taking place among Amazon
employees in Germany, France and Britain, where workers at the company's
warehouse near Milton Keynes complain of low pay and gruelling shift
patterns. "Amazon is a beacon of the new economy, with the wages and
conditions of an old economy sweatshop," declares Greg Denier of the
Washington-based UFCWU.
The company - whose 36-year-old founder Jeff Bezos made $20m from selling
Amazon shares this year - is fighting back with resolutely traditional
union-busting tactics.
Since news of the drive for unionisation leaked out prematurely, Amazon
man agers in the US have called workers in for group and one-to-one
sessions to lay out the company's case against unions - claiming,
according to an internal corporate website, that they "foster distrust
towards supervisors" and "create an unco-operative attitude".
Steve Frazier, Amazon's UK managing director, insists the firm is not
anti-union, but "pro-customer, pro-employee and pro-shareholder - we don't
currently believe that having our employees represented by a union would
best allow us to achieve those three goals." He adds that Amazon's basic
British wage rates of around 5 pounds an hour are part of a "competitive
package" including health cover, pension contributions and share options.
The sharp fall in dot.com share prices is, according to Peter Skyte of the
British technical staff union MSF, one factor behind a new receptiveness
to trade unions among new economy workers, who have in the past been
prepared to tolerate poor pay and conditions in return for potentially
lucrative shares.
"With the law guaranteeing employees the right to individual union
representation since September, there are now no no-go areas for unions in
the new economy. Our IT membership is growing by 10% a year and internet
service providers in particular are ripe for the taking. The companies may
be virtual, but the issues faced by staff are very real."
The main grievances centre around lack of job security and poor
conditions, according to Skyte, who this autumn negotiated the first major
union recognition agreement in the sector, with US-owned IT services
company, CSC, covering all 7,000 of the company's UK-based employees.
The deal was a new economy breakthrough for British unions. But the
traditional dot.com start-ups - a handful of nerds working in a trendy
inner city loft - are likely to remain an uphill struggle for union
organisers, who complain of an "anti-union culture".
Richer pickings are to be had in the internet spinoffs and extensions of
long-established businesses, in finance or the media, where unions are
well-established and dot.com union agreements have already been signed.
The other main areas targeted for unionisation are those where, as in the
Amazon case, a traditional service is being delivered online, backed up by
armies of staff in warehouses and call centres. "We've got our hands
full," one organiser remarks.
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