In a press statement on 23 May 2018 (here) the international services union federation Uni Global announced that the first ever company agreement was signed with online retail giant Amazon. The agreement was signed two days ago and addresses working hours for the 1,656 employees working in the Piacenza warehouse in Italy. The agreement comes after significant labor unrest and mobilization with the US retailer having to cope with a wave of coordinated strike action across Europe, which has been scheduled for business critical times and dates (the November 2017 Black Friday mobilization being a case in point). The next big mobilization day was set for the period surrounding Amazon’s big promotional ‘Prime Day’. In addition to the ‘Prime Day’ action, Spain’s Amazon employees are expected to stop work on 01 June in their bid to keep up the pressure on their ongoing negotiations.
For the Piacenza employees the agreement intends for workers to work in two teams during the day on a weekly basis, namely the morning shift from 7h00 to 15h00, and the afternoon shift from 15h30 to 23h30. The night shift, which varies according to business flows, will be worked on a voluntary basis and these workers will now be paid 25% extra instead of the 15% extra that was paid previously.
Planet Labor, 24 May 2018, nº10691– www.planetlabor.com
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