Verdi has been arguing with Amazon for collective agreements for years. In the event of strike actions, employees of the online retailer are hit directly in the parking lot in front of the main entrance – a violation of the house right? The Federal Constitutional Court now decides in favor of the strikers.
The online retail giant Amazon has to accept strikes in its company parking lots at least in some locations. The Federal Constitutional Court dismissed two complaints by the mail order company, thereby confirming the judgments of the Federal Labor Court in 2018. The strikes did not violate Amazon's fundamental rights to property and entrepreneurial freedom of action, the highest German court in Karlsruhe said.
The background is the permanent tariff conflict with Verdi. The union has been trying to get Amazon to recognize regional retail and mail order deals for more than seven years. The company believes that it is a responsible employer even without a collective agreement. This was about strikes at the Pforzheim and Koblenz locations. There is a huge company car park in front of the main entrance, most of the employees also come by car. During the campaigns from 2014 to 2016, representatives of Verdi and strikers gathered right in front of the entrance.
Amazon wanted to prevent this from happening in the future and appealed to its house right. Verdi could just as well approach the employees further away at the entrance to the parking lot. The Federal Labor Court considered the strikes to be permissible. Given the local conditions, Verdi could only address the Amazon employees at both locations in the company car park, the Erfurt judge decided in November 2018. Amazon had to accept the "short-term, situational impairment".
Amazon reacts with lack of understanding
The constitutional judges have nothing to complain about. The labor court has "understandably resolved the tension between property and freedom of action of the company as an employer and freedom of association for the union". The fundamental rights of the union would "not be privileged unilaterally". Verdi was also not to be criticized for not forming a strike alley. With 65 strikers in an almost 30,000 square meter parking lot, employees willing to work could easily park their car and get to their work.
Amazon reacted to the decision with a lack of understanding. "We have always been concerned with employee safety," stressed the world's largest mail order company. "It comes first. Today's decision does not help to avoid unnecessary dangerous situations in the parking lot."
Amazon has 15 logistics centers in Germany with around 13,000 permanent employees. Verdi said that Amazon had tried several times to ban the use of company parking spaces in the event of strikes. "The company must now acknowledge at the latest that wild west methods are not appropriate either for the employees and their works councils, nor for Verdi," said union secretary André Scheer. Verdi will continue to exercise his right to strike on Amazon.
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