“Machine, I am a machine,” says the driver of the white van. “Twelve hours every day for four years. But if I don’t work, I don’t get any money. ”The man delivers parcels for Amazon, the global number one in online retail. Every morning he waits in line with his delivery van in front of the distribution center in Frankfurt am Main.
On this late summer morning, at the beginning of September 2021, something is different: A small group of trade unionists are handing out flyers in different languages to the drivers. You quickly get into conversation. The stories are similar: drivers report ten or twelve hour shifts, work pressure, day trips with 250 deliveries. At the end of the month, often delayed, they receive 1,000 to 1,200 euros. Sometimes there are deductions, for example for a worn mirror or scratches on the vehicle.
If you take a closer look, a lot of it violates German labor law. But: where there is no plaintiff, there is no judge. The drivers often do not know their rights. Many are from Eastern Europe, some from the Middle East. You depend on the job. The courage to mess with her employer is not great.
The action in Frankfurt was organized by the Verdi service union and the DGB “Fair Mobility” advisory network. Hundreds of people in small teams distribute information material to more than 8,000 drivers who are on the road in parcel delivery on the “last mile” or in truck transport for Amazon. However, none of them are employed by Amazon. Right from the start, the group has outsourced its business risk for delivery to a network of small subcontractors who compete with each other and pass the pressure on to their employees.
A separate airport in Halle
Amazon operates 14 large dispatch warehouses between Hamburg and Munich in Germany. Most of them have been on strike for years. In addition to the mail order business, the group is also developing other strategic fields: One of them is logistics. Amazon has entered the container shipping business and operates its own cargo airline, which is now the fourth largest in the world. In autumn of last year, the group opened its own air freight hub at Halle-Leipzig Airport. In the middle of the Corona crisis, which was not a crisis for Amazon, but the biggest boom of all time. The “last mile” is considered the most critical part of the logistics chain. Most can go wrong where the parcel makes its way to the end customer. Delivery vehicles are stuck in a traffic jam or cannot find a parking space, recipients are not at home, address details are unclear, parcel couriers have to go to the front door on the fifth floor of the second rear building or pass snappy dogs. And, most importantly for Amazon: 50 percent of the costs are incurred on the last mile.
It is not surprising that Amazon has been trying for about five years to get the “last mile” under its own direction. With the Amazon Logistics division, the group is building up its own delivery service and is becoming more and more independent of companies such as DHL and Hermes. This brings another precariousness driver into an industry that is already under enormous competitive pressure. “Delivery Service Partners” is the name of the specially created subcontractor network. In addition, they are experimenting with a platform-based employment model that is otherwise known from Uber or other gig economy companies: “Independent deliverers” can register using the “Amazon Flex” app and deliver parcels with their own car. There is 25 euros an hour for this, of which they not only have to pay living expenses, but also their operating costs and social security.
However, the main burden of the delivery business lies with the “DSP” – small companies with five to ten, sometimes even 25 vehicles, who queue up every morning in front of the goods distribution centers together with the drivers of other equally small companies. Amazon has now set up around fifty such regional district centers in Germany. This is where delivery tours are planned and the parcels are loaded onto the delivery vans. Amazon did not invent the subcontractor system for parcel delivery – Hermes, DPD, GLS are also relying on it, and more and more the Post subsidiary DHL. But much more systematically than any competitor, Amazon combines the business advantages of such outsourcing with digital monitoring, control by algorithms and AI.
Tina Morgenroth from the Thuringian “Fair Mobility” advice center took a look at the distribution center that opened in Erfurt-Stotternheim at the end of 2019 as an example. Not because she was targeting Amazon, but because more and more employees from Amazon subcontractors came to her at the advice center with problems – there are now around 150 who asked for support. They report on working conditions that should not actually exist under current labor law. Ten to twelve hour shifts six days a week, no sick pay, falling below the statutory minimum wage, work pressure that makes it impossible to take the legally prescribed breaks. Nevertheless, break times are automatically deducted – the AI sends its regards.
Controls by the responsible occupational health and safety authorities have so far not been a serious threat to Amazon. The group can hardly be held responsible for the working conditions at the subcontractors. But they are often difficult to grasp. In mid-July, for example, the Thuringian occupational health and safety authority found violations at 21 Amazon parcel subcontractors. But because 20 of these companies are based outside of Thuringia, one is not responsible, it is said on request. Occupational safety is a matter of the country. The problem, however – the Amazon system – is global.
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