By Monica Houston-Waesch
FRANKFURT--Workers at four German sites of Amazon.com Inc. will
continue their strikes over wages until the afternoon of Dec. 24,
labor union Verdi said Friday.
The move extends strikes at several sites that were due to end
on Dec. 20. This week, seven of Amazon's nine German sites were
affected by simultaneous strikes for the first time since labor
action began in the spring of 2013.
The strikes until 3:00 p.m. local time on Christmas Eve are at
Bad Hersfeld, Leipzig, Rheinberg, and Graben.
Verdi and Amazon are at odds over wages for the 10,000 permanent
workers Amazon employs in Germany. The union wants Amazon to
classify the employees as retail rather than logistics, which would
require higher hourly wages. It also wants Amazon to agree to
negotiating wage agreements with the labor union--as is customary
at large German companies--rather than dealing with local workers'
councils directly.
Write to Monica Houston-Waesch at nikki.houston@wsj.com
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