Marketing giant Amazon has been hit by another staff walkout.
Workers at an Amazon warehouse in Koblenz, Germany have begun a new round of strikes aimed at pressuring the firm to increase pay.
The German market is second only to the US, but nevertheless Amazon refuses to recognise Germany’s collective pay deals for the mail order and retail sector.
German union Verdi has been calling frequent strikes at Amazon warehouses across the country since May 2013 to get the retailer to raise pay in accordance with collective bargaining agreements.
Last year, the New York Times investigated Amazon and found that excessive pressure was put on its employees, that layoffs were frequent and that there was a general atmosphere of fear. Amazon denied the claims.
In July last year, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the US, with a market valuation of $250 billion, and Forbes deemed its founder and director Jeff Bezos the fifth-wealthiest person on the planet. So perhaps he does not need any more money.
In the UK, residents spent £5.3bn on Amazon in 2014, the same year that the company coughed up just £11.9m for HMRC although by May 2015 it said it would pay corporation tax on sales in the UK.
Some Brits are going elsewhere to shop online, such as Hulu and Netflix for films. Netflix has a good reputation in employee relations and regularly tops the rank of best companies to work for, although it too has been perhaps a bit lax on its corporation tax payments to the UK.
Book lovers are turning to Hive.co.uk which is a network of 360 independent booksellers and calls itself a “British, tax-paying company” which sells books, audio and video.
Leading British newspapers, such as the Guardian and the Daily Telegraph also market books.
