As a German living in Sweden, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Granted, compared to the US, both are on a similar level, but if you look at them individually, unions are a lot stronger in Sweden.
> Initially, Swedish and Nordic clients will be mainly served from German warehouses — known as fulfillment centers in Amazon-speak — with trucks driving up to Sweden through Denmark, and a fulfillment center operated by local partner Kuehne + Nagel in the Swedish town of Eskilstuna, near Stockholm.
During the lockdown here in France Amazon was forced to close some warehouses and filfillment centers under pressure from unions (among other pressures, of course). It was big news for a week or so, and deliveries seemed to pause briefly before being picked up from German warehouses, too. After a week or so we started getting our deliveries again, usually with an extra day of delay because it was being fulfilled from Germany.
I suspect they will eventually do a deal with the Swedish unions but that, in the meantime, trucking things in from Germany will allow them to become established.
> After a week or so we started getting our deliveries again, usually with an extra day of delay because it was being fulfilled from Germany.
In some other industries (shipping) you have to be really careful to do that. There's various laws against breaking up (the effectiveness of) a strike. That's currently often only applied within one country. If Amazon does something similar more often enough they'll probably get hit with an EU-wide law instead.
It's always weird that internet based companies aren't treated like any other company. Unfair competition IMO.
This was less a strike than a forced government shutdown due to COVID-19. amazon couldn’t satisfy the French government that the French warehouses and fulfillment centers were going to be safe for workers, so they were shutdown. I assume that the German ones satisfied the German government to German standards, and so were kept open.
They weren't shut down, that was Amazons decision. The court only told them to reduce operations to specific categories of its store site - the idea was to somehow reduce operations to a safe amount as Amazon had repeatedly failed to so by itself. Amazon then made up the nebulous "essential products" category and made sure to complain loudly about the supposed nonsense the court required while it shut down french warehouses completely.
The court provided a list of Amazon(TM) categories from the Amazon (TM) website and told Amazon to restrict its operations to those. You wont find any of the "essential products" nonsense outside of Amazons own court documents and press releases.
I don't understand. The goverment created an a product list of items to sell, which amazon then tried to create an essential product list which contained these items?
I don't understand whats the problem with that?
According to Amazon they found it difficult to workout what was and wasn't an essential item according to the rules. I would imagine with a catalog as big amazon that's probably true. They decided to shutdown instead which is perfectly rational given the amount fines placed upon them if they did accidentally ship an item. The goverment got what they requested, no non essential items shipped.
I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them.
That the "essential products list" does not exist, which is the key complaint in any discussion about this. Amazon invented a requirement that does not exist to claim that the requirements are to vague to implement. The list the court provided is explicit in the court documents, meanwhile the "essential products" is subject to the imagination of every armchair free market capitalist. You wont find it googling, you wont find it going through court documents, you will only find an unending sea of discussion how stupid it is for a court to require something as vague as selling only "essential products" and how Amazon shutting down its french warehouses was the only sane response to this requirement.
> I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them.
This was an union driven lawsuit. Shutting down operations to stamp out union activity is rather common with companies large enough to cover the short term costs of it.
The French government placed on Amazon, AND every other online sellers, restrictions on what type of product could be sold: only first necessity items. The only one refusing to comply, and loudly at that, was Amazon.
Put itself above the law to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable to me. And now they are making a lot of publicity on tv to remend the damage. A little too late, I'm boycotting them personally.
It didn't put itself above the law, because it closed down instead. That's complying with the law. Considering the amount fines they we're threatned with, I agree it was too risky operate. They would have only had to made a few mistakes and they would risk a massive fine.
Amazon has a huge catalog compared to other retailers, and trying to categorise that without mistakes would be difficult and prone to errors.
And why do you think they were threaten ? Because they were found not operating within the bound of pandemic related decrees. They willing did not respect them. Maybe in the USA they would have automatically been fined, but the French negotiated with them and gave them delays. The French Amazon CEO willfully claimed they would never comply. They knew what they were doing and in practice quite literally put themselves above the law.
And no, Amazon has the same catalog as other French retailer, at least in France. Amazon just chose to play dumb with both catalog filtering demands AND physical distances in warehouses.
The fines were enormous for every violation, and EU courts have been doing billion dollar fines of these companies - why in the world would you operate one warehouse doing 10% volume (90% shutdown already) facing huge fines?
They complied with the law and shut down. This further limited covid risks for their workers.
No, they were caught not complying with the law and were threaten with fines. At which point they decided to finally comply with the law by shutting down. BIG difference.
Got it. I'm in the US - there have been boycotts every year of Amazon but they have grown to be pretty large here. How are they doing in france? It seems their model may be less successful there especially if there is more willingness to boycot.
Given that Amazon had failed two safety inspections beforehand the main requirement was: Work with union representatives and safety inspectors to draw up and enforce appropriate safety measures for covid, instead of ignoring them as they did after the previous incidents. The court considered a month as appropriate for this.
During this month they were to keep operations artificially low. As far as I could find the court cut down the categories they could sell to around 10% of what they normally sold to ensure reduced activity. They were also reminded to enforce the existing social distancing rules, avoid large meetings, etc. . I currently regret not keeping a link to the list of categories around when I found it shortly after the court case, now Google only seems to return a flood of news pages all repeating the same source free articles.
And they decided those close down because the strain on them by those requirements.
Whats the problem with that?
People seem resentful they closed because they calculated it wasn't worth operating. What do people expect? increase the difficulty of doing business and you won't have business operating.
I also suspect they felt they would be dealt with unfairly compared to native retailers, as the goverment has called Amazon a threat the French way of life and other rhetoric.
As others have pointed out, this wasn't a strike. The government imposed some rules with steep penalties in case of failure to comply. Amazon figured they would rather stop operations altogether while figuring how to set this up.
One notable difference with a strike is that employees kept receiving their pay.
I wish Amazon UK would send from the continent when items are not in stock. I had to wait three months to get a Spacegrey Magic Trackpad from them while it was in stock all the time in Amazon DE, NL, FT.
Then Poland is a great choice, nothing has change politically since 70s.
We have government that is built on anti-communist PR, whilst using Soviet guidebook on how to run a country. Including censorship, misinformation, erosion of democratic institution and processes.
Heck they even have an ex-communist prosecutor in government!
So you can bet Poland is political concrete block.
(this is attempt at slightly humorous post through gritted teeth)
I presume you mean they are unlikely to open a fulfillment center in Iraq (or even Lebanon). If you're pointing the finger at Sweden as being difficult, I'm not sure what you mean by "stable political climate". The country has been more or less run by social democrats since the early 20th century, with periods of liberal/conservative majorities interspersed.
Good luck with Sweden's one hour lunch break. And the fika breaks every hour as well. Sorry Jeff, no forcing workers to pee in bottles among the shelves[1] in Sweden to drive up the stock price. I hope the Nordic countries wont bow down to Amazon's exploits.
Well the lunch break is not work time in Sweden so if you have a 1 hour lunch you just work longer in the afternoon. 30 minutes lunch (scheduled to fit the shifts) has been the norm when I have done blue collar work. I don't know anyone who has fika every hour. 15 minutes breakfast break and 15 minutes in the afternoon (on the clock) is normal.
You are entitled to 5 minutes (paid) break per hour worked in a shift, which the employer has the right to consolidate in various (but not endless) ways. This is on top the right to a lunch break which has separate rules. I think that both of these are is in the labour law and not allowed to substantially re-negotiated. (Many things across the various labour laws are explicitly allowed to be overridden by CBA).
What a weird article. Loads of international companies operate in countries with wildly different laws, standards of living, disposable income, etc.
Why compare Sweden with a Polish warehouse workers and not investigate how e.g. Amazon.fr operates? That country at least goes on strike significantly more often (probably more so than the rest of the EU combined). Meaning, one year I noticed them on strike every other week to protest some intended government plan, even though the company had nothing to do with that, plus they only went on strike during the night.
> Initially, Swedish and Nordic clients will be mainly served from German warehouses — known as fulfillment centers in Amazon-speak — with trucks driving up to Sweden through Denmark, and a fulfillment center operated by local partner Kuehne + Nagel in the Swedish town of Eskilstuna, near Stockholm.
So partly they question if they'll operate a warehouse, but at the same time, there's going to be a warehouses. Only difference is that someone else does the logistics for them.
What usually happens with different standards of living is that the companies raise their prices a bit. Not sure why the article does not go into that.
EU is planning some changes in the trucking cabotage laws, see e.g. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/202.... This might (according to articles) make it more difficult to only use truckers from certain countries (e.g. whomever has the lowest standard of living / wage). Might also benefit the environment by ensuring companies might reduce the amount of trucking.
I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French.
Sweden is a little unique in that we have fewer strikes than most European countries. The reason is the "fredsplikt": as long as there is a collective bargaining agreement in place, if a worker goes on strike they can be legally laid off for shirking work.
So, strikes will only happen at most every two-three years when the current agreement expires. And while then there may be a threat of strike, it seldom comes to that.
In contrast, in most contries (notably France), unions may do "political strikes" to express opinions.
Amazon won't be worried about their Swedish employees unpredictably going on strike for better terms. They will be worrying about having to agree to the same collective agreement as competing businesses. They will not get to push salaries lower than others, or squeeze slightly more hours or shorter breaks. So, they will have to look forward to their profits coming from economy of scale and not mistreatment of their warehouse workers. They will not be able to keep prices 10% lower than competitors while keeping the same profit margin, the way they do in the U.S.
Until they sign an agreement, workers at other companies will likely put them under blockade, which means truckers from suppliers will refuse to ship to Amazon's Swedish warehouse; Postal workers will not pick up shipments to consumers; Caterers and conference centres won't service management meetings; Electricians will not service their warehouse; Garbage will not get picked up, etc. They can do some of this themselves, instead, but that's a very high threshold to cross on day 1.
At least in Germany they are definitely paying less than other logistics companies. Do you have an example country where amazon pays more than the competitors?
A lot of people think they forced amazon take this action, but strategically its great for amazon if they can raise the minimum wage. It will force other people out of business before causes them issues. It's calculated. They deliver more items per unit of labour then anyone else.
Collective bargain agreements are more difficult because its not national law. You can pay more but your competitors won't. But unions being unions will always ask for more if they think they can, even if they already pay well compared to other companies.
Do you have information on how well they are paid in Germany? I can't find any information on it other than amazon stating they pay well.
Companies are a lot smarter than people given them credit for. They use regulation to their own advantage, they're not against it. They will lobby for nice sounding regulation for PR reasons if they've calculated it harm others more then themselves. They just position themselves to take advantage of the regulation.
Most of the time companies with large amounts of capital are best place to do this. It's the small companies that get screwed.
I consider automation to be part of "economy of scale".
I don't think salary levels are necessarily the chief way Amazon squeezes their workers harder than competitors - you're right that their minimum wage in the US is higher than the law mandates - but I would also love to see evidence of what their competition is paying. I'd bet they're not on the federal minimum wage, either!
It's not all automation though! Amazon is notorious for extreme work pressure. Too few and too short breaks, for example. This will absolutely not fly in Sweden. Not adapting properly to COVID-19 is another example of putting profits before working conditions.
I don't think amazon will have problem with this as long as the competition play by the same rules.
If its the same rules, amazon will just use its huge amount of capital investment to gain those advantages instead. As it does now. In fact it will in Amazons advantage to raise conditions for entire country if it can.
The problem comes when governments intervene to disadvantage foreign companies over native companies to provide an advantage.
> Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation.
Talking about automation and then the warehouse bit:
Automation in warehouses is something that was in the news in Netherlands recently. Some supermarket opened an partly automated warehouse, the news brought it as something unique. From the comments it was clear that various other supermarkets did that already either years ago, recently or they have such more automated warehouses under construction. Apparently fully automated is very difficult.
Having an automated warehouse isn't something that another company cannot do and/or requires unique expertise. Apparently various supermarkets hired the same company to build their warehouse.
Automation is only a part of it. As you say an automated warehouse anyone can buy from an automated warehouse provider assuming they're big enough to afford it.
It's about operational efficiency. It's the culture. Things like kaizen, optimising everything, having teams that work out exactly where the products should go etc etc. How should the packing stations be positioned, how should they be designed? What slows down the workers on the packing stations? Small improvements to the tools they every day. Constant small improvements everyday. Anyone should be able to suggest improvements. Try multiple experiments, most of them won't work. It builds up like a flywheel overtime, and then other companies won't be able to catch up.
Companies try to replicate it, buts its harder then just buying a warehouse from company x. Frankly you need the leadership for it, and whole lot of time, money and patience for it to pay off.
> I don't know if you've quite understood how Swedish labor law differs from the French.
Obviously I don't know Swedish labour law.
What I'm after is something completely different: Amazon is able to operate in France just fine. I think France is NOT an easy country to operate in. Meaning, I think the article is not trying to pretend things are more difficult than they are in practice. Or: a non-story.
The bits you mention about collective labour agreements also applies to e.g. Netherlands. It partly there to also prevent unfair competition. The prices might be a bit higher or something, but again, not really a story.
It's interesting that other businesses restrict/block other companies. Within Netherlands the government (or at most a judge, possible due to unions) would ensure that such the company is forced to comply.
If the article actually mentioned the details where Amazon might try to ignore it, then go into detail why it would backfire, that would add something interesting. At the moment the article is poor and a non-story.
> The reason is the "fredsplikt": as long as there is a collective bargaining agreement in place, if a worker goes on strike they can be legally laid off for shirking work.
I don't believe this is strictly true. The "fredsplikt" (lit. "Duty of Peace") only applies to members of a signing, or co-signing union. So while the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement apply to all employees, the "sacrifices" do not apply to members of, say, other unions that do not sign the agreement. The most common example of this in practice is "SAC Syndikalisterna".
In practice though, strikes are unusual as they are a very ineffective means of negotiation unless very large, and therefore very expensive.
Nordic politicians will cave in like everyone else.
Generally it's funny how this region (Nordics) is reported in the media as some kinds of rationalist demi-gods, when in reality most politics here are just your regular smokescreen mixed with wishful thinking and a lack of understanding the real world.
In conclusion, politicians will do as politicians do nowerdays - drive their own career over the 'public good'.
You seem to be misguided about the influence of politics on labor negotiations in Sweden. There is no mandate for a politician to interfere, it is entirely a thing between the two bargaining parties. That is, unless you can gather a political majority behind a major upheaval of the current law, which would have to happen after the next election because no such majority exists today.
Potentially true, my reflection point is Finland instead of Sweden. Unions over here are however thinly masked extensions of political parties, yes they operate somewhat independently but each political party has a 'favourite' union who they influence through unofficial channels.
They have traditional strong ties to one subset of the unions, the LO ones. But it's complex: LO is often openly critical of the (ruling) Social Democratic Party. At the same time a large chunk of the actual union members are voting for a different party, often one in opposition to the Social Democrats.
It is. The LO union members are the ones with the most to loose with a workforce surplus that comes with more immigration (really refugee asylum, traditional immigration is on about the same levels as ever). The Alliance (center-right, when it existed) recogniced this and made the traditionally left humanitarian stance their own. This backfired in a spectacular way when the alt-right wave swept the world. SD takes voters from both blocks.
That's a pretty marginal change in the context of European labor practices. There is still an "obligation of peace" while a bargaining agreement is in place, for example. It will (initially at least) only affect sites where there is more than one union who are competing for the same category of members, which is not all that common.
> It will (initially at least) only affect sites where there is more than one union who are competing for the same category of members, which is not all that common.
It is abstractly a huge deal and practically a huge deal for Hamnen, SAC, Brandmännens Riksförbund and other alternative unions because it excludes all competition among unions and channels all reform through the internal political workings of those unions like LO/Kommunal. As the a laywer in Arbetaren explained (and others have explained elsewhere) previously, it allows for company (i.e. "yellow") unions which is a realistic problem now considering Amazon is involved.
It's foremost an issue between amazon and the unions. The labour market in the Nordic countries are organized through negotiations between employers and the workers. Usually the state tries to stay out of it, letting the labour marked self-regulate.
Good thing collective bargaining doesn't involve politicians, then. Unless the elected politicians decide to uproot the entire Swedish system by changing the laws, there's little they can do to interfere with this process. About 70% of the Swedish workforce is in some kind of union.
Worst case-scenario for Amazon is that we'll see some kind of stand-off where multiple labor unions prevent their members from working for Amazon, or doing work for Amazon (usually things like truck drivers at other businesses going on strike instead of delivering good to/from Amazon).
Amazon have a pretty good alternative, so they'll only warehouse in Sweden if it makes economic sense vs Germany + Poland. As for the unions, their incentives and alternatives may be different to the union members too.
I'm very interested to see how Amazon's entry into the Swedish market plays out. I used to shop a lot on Amazon back when I lived in the SF Bay Area and thought I would miss it when I moved to Stockholm but honestly that has not been the case. I get 1-2 day shipping from other online retailers in Sweden anyway (like CDON and Webhallen) and there is quite fierce competition between a few of the bigger names in the game which keeps prices low. The only thing I miss about Amazon was their very generous return policy and same-day shipping on some items, but I think the latter is limited to larger markets.
I always attempt to shop from Amazon Germany because (a) larger variety of items, and (b) I feel I can trust the reviews there. Have you found Swedish e-commerce sites to have enough reliable reviews to buy anything with confidence, or do you tend to buy products that you can find reviews of elsewhere? I joke to my wife, "If 500 Germans say it's good, I'm sold"
As a German, don't trust the reviews, they're heavily manipulated. I guess at some point (e.g. top seller with thousands of reviews) manipulation doesn't move the needle as much, but for plenty of products with < 100 reviews, there's often dozens that are likely fakes (even without counting the paid Vine reviews).
Read 3/4 star reviews, they are usually good indicator of quality.
There are few type of those, and you are looking for someone who knows what they are talking about and talk about shortcomings of a given product. They are usually pro's that have some experience with given category of a product. So they know what they want.
If you find one like that its ease to judge what features you need vs features pros need.
Usually, 1 stars are by entitled complainers (unless product is cheap knockoff) and 5 stars are by people that don't know what they are talking about or brought reviews.
I use prisjakt regularly as well but mainly for the price comparison feature between retailers. The reviews on the website are decent as well though but there are typically a couple orders of magnitude fewer reviews on products than on Amazon DE/UK/US.
The question here is whether the reviews on prisjakt.nu are fewer because they're true reviews while those on Amazon often are fake. The prevalence of fake reviews - both positive as well as negative - has made it more or less impossible to rely on them as a guide.
Yup, that's what I'm using as well, usually in combination with a check on ebay.de and ebay.co.uk for products which fit the bill - i.e. not for heavy, bulky goods like fridges and washing machines but certainly for smaller electronics and tools. For larger computer hardware - servers etc - I tend to look towards Germany and the UK since prices tend to be quite a bit lower than here in Sweden. I have only bought something at Amazon once, using the French version, my reasons being that they tended not to want to ship to Sweden and even if they do the price tended to be matched by other sellers. I do not want to get an Amazon monoculture so I'll continue to do so unless the price difference ends up so big that the offer is "too good to refuse". Swedish prices tend to be on the high side but they have come down, most likely due to competition from abroad. The Swedish postal service does its best to counteract this by putting a fine on parcels from outside the EU - they call it a handling charge but that is just word play, the intention is both for them to pad their budget and for you to stop buying from overseas - so I've been exploring ways to get around this by having goods delivered to the Netherlands (where I'm originally from) to import them myself when I happen to be there.
I don't think your point about the handling fee rings very true. If you followed the news at the time when it was added you would know that it was put in place to counter the huge workload that came with handling all the packages from cheap Chinese online stores (like Wish). Before that PostNord almost never charged for handling packages from outside the EU. The same can not be said about DHL, UPS and Fedex who ALWAYS make sure to charge extra for handling any package from outside the EU, almost without fail.
It makes sense in my mind that the buyer should be the one to pay for the handling of what they buy. I don't want to subsidise your shopping/shipping via my taxes, they're high enough as it is.
Postnord's argument that the handling of parcels from China took too much time was utterly nonsensical, especially given in the light of their usual complaints about the fact that fewer people were mailing stuff so they had to raise prices. If handling parcels from China took too much time they simply had not been very good in negotiating a deal with China Post about parcel rates.
Another factor in the nonsensicality of this tariff is that Sweden is more or less the only country which starts charging sales tax (called moms here, comparable with VAT in the UK, BTW in the Netherlands etc.) from a value of 0kr (i.e. free, but sales tax is paid on the shipping costs). Where other European countries start charging sales tax when the value of imported goods rises above (e.g.) €20, Sweden starts at €0. Many parcels ordered from China fall under that rate which make it a very common thing to be represented with the following:
price of ordered goods including shipping: €4
sales tax: €1
"handling fee": €8
total: €13, of which €9 goes to the Swedish state (directly or through Postnord)
Mind, this is not the shipping fee as that was already paid for in the €4 purchase price. If the same parcel were ordered to the Netherlands the customer would pay €4 and that's it, no import fees and no tariffs.
The so-called "handling fee" is nothing but an excuse to put a tariff on international trade for individuals, a way to make sure the fruits of globalisation stay out of reach of the public.
I actually use Amazon DE/UK/US for to look at reviews but I more often than not end up purchasing from a Swedish e-tailer. There are some exceptions though, like when the price is just much lower on Amazon DE. I had to buy a label maker last week and the price on Amazon DE for a specific model was almost 40% cheaper than buying it from a local store in Sweden.
Same here (mostly buying books). I look at the reviews on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Goodreads.com (great because it has reviews of Swedish books as well), then order from Adlibris (mostly) and Bokus (occasionally). Often the prices have been about the same. Even if they weren't, I don't mind paying a bit more if it means the warehouse workers are treated fairly.
I don’t trust the reviews and the selection is such a grab bag of garbage. Besides some obviously branded stuff (I don’t know, any Apple product for example) it feels like playing Russian roulette, especially if you just want something random like, I don’t know, kitchen utensils.
There are far fewer fake reviews at amazon.de (well, compared to what I read on HN) and surprisingly many that are high quality. I think it might be partially because the reviews would need to be in German so you have fewer low-cost ways to have them created.
And I’m not sure we have co-mingling here because I never heard of the problems that seem to be common in the US (/ on HN) with it and also never experienced it myself (I spend around 2.200 € on Amazon per year)
No idea. I haven't experienced that either and I use amazon.de a lot.
I've had one item sold by Amazon as new that was clearly a fraud return, though, i.e. the item inside the product package was switched for a different model.
I think HN commenters also overstate the problem. I’m in the US, use Amazon a lot, and haven’t noticed counterfeits. Maybe I’m just bad at identifying them.
I think it’s the type of issue where it would be a major problem for the producer of a specific product that got ripped off, and any customers who are fans of that product, but may never affect the average buyer.
I live in the US and out of hundreds (thousands?) of purchases only one or two have made me question if they were counterfeit, and even those worked well enough and I didn't return them. There may be a selection bias in the comments you read because the countless people like me never post their experience and the 0.001% who unluckily were repeatedly sold counterfeit will likely post about it.
I feel like to stock co-mingling issue is far less pronounced in Europe compared to what the American crowd here on HN says. I live in Europe, and never got a fake product from Amazon.
That cluttering and dumping of tons of similar indistinguishable products under different sellers really annoys me. Another annoyance even when I do shop in those redundant product categories is that they don't even upload reallife photos of their products but these lowsy idealized CGI photos that give no sense to the quality or actual appearance of the item.
How do you feel you can trust Amazon reviews? In the UK they've become really bad, obvious fakes, loads of low quality products dropshipped from Alibaba/China with tons of 5 stars.
The only reviews you can vaguely trust are the non-5 star ones.
Let's see how that goes. Everybody in Sweden right now has an uneasy feeling about Amazon, and I have the impression that if people could have a referendum on the matter, Amazon wouldn't be allowed in.
Everybody in Sweden is ~10.150.000 people. They all have their own ideas about many things, including whether Amazon should be allowed to set up shop here. I thing they should be allowed, that does not mean I want them to take over the market. Since my opinion represents that of 0.00001% of the population I'm not going to speak for the rest of the country.
I live in Stockholm, and order regularly from Amazon Germany already. It's free shipping if you order 39 euro or above, which usually delivers things in around a week. Fast shipping of two working days costs 9 euro per shipment.
Based on what I've read and this article, it doesn't sound like that much will change once it officially "launches" a Swedish site, although maybe Amazon will lower the minimum amount for free shipping or speed up regular shipping time. Re: this article, I can see them being willing to hold off for quite some time.
Also to note: During the Covid-19 peak in Sweden, Amazon provided to-the-door delivery using Postnord, which I figured was somewhat of an experiment for when the Swedish site launched. It's pretty rare here in e-commerce to get door deliveries - most online shopping is sent to local convenience stores and you need to go and pick up.
Something I forgot to add: Sweden does have some great gig worker to-the-door delivery companies that have sprung up, particularly around small items like from online pharmacies. When you fulfill an order using those companies they typically have a great monitoring app to track where your delivery is, to input your building door code if necessary, inform you when it's been left outside your door, etc.
I always find it a great contrast to compare to premium shipping companies like DHL and FedEx, whenever I'm unlucky enough to get a delivery from them from overseas. They're still stuck in a world of "we'll deliver between 9am and 6pm, be ready" and they also make little attempt to ask for door codes if you live in the inner city, so most first attempts end up with "premises was not accessible" with no convenient way to give them the four digit code they need. I spent 1+ hour on hold last week with DHL and FedEx for this exact purpose. It will be interesting to see how "modern" of an approach Amazon takes.
Germany has interesting approach for this: if you can't be reached, the delivery will be left to whichever neighbour or coffee shop happens to accept it. You'll get notified where it was left, and then just go knocking.
It's quite weird at first but in my experience works surprisingly well. Very rarely one has to go queue in the post office to collect the parcel.
That’s only the case if it was delivered by Deutsche Post (instead of DHL) and does not fit into your mailbox, or, in the case of DHL, when you told them to do it via their website.
I agree! Budbee in particular has been very good in this respect! Often you can get free shipping with delivery between 17:00 and 22:00, and if you want a specific hour, you can pay 39 SEK to get that.
Assuming that local production reduces costs, the question seems to become whether they can leverage demand to break the unions or not. This comes from the two further assumptions that they don't have any other leverage to do so (outside of corruption) and even though the benefit of satsifying the market presumably outststrips the cost, they will do everything they can to reduce costs anyway.
Am I missing anything?
I'll continue supporting the local competition (for books and media) in any case.
How would they be able to leverage demand? I can't see our politicians wanting to get involved in this fight, especially not on Amazon's side. Why would they want to support Amazon against both unions and againast Swedish companies? I think they will just remove themselves from the conflict and let it play out. I can't see a scenario where Amazon does not have to agree to collective bargaining.
Very simple, they'll just stage most operations outside of Sweden but inside the EU and run deliveries to Sweden that way. More or less like things are now, really.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? In practice I've had parcels from Germany arrive a week before those which were ordered from Swedish companies on the same day. It even happened once with a shipment from China which arrived in a record 7 days while the Swedish shipment lingered in a postal depot for 3 more days. This was back in the time the Swedish postal monopoly still drove yellow trucks and cars and had not merged yet with the Danish equivalent, i.e. before things went downhill.
Unlike USA Swedish politicians mostly comes from working class backgrounds. Their friends and family are working class. If they do something that is bad for the working class it will ruin their social lives, so they wont. And since the working/lower middle class is the biggest class they have no problems getting elected.
> Unlike USA Swedish politicians mostly comes from working class backgrounds
Have you looked at the current Swedish government? You'll be hard pressed to find people with "working class backgrounds" there, they're mostly political broilers who started their career in the SSU (social democrat youth movement) or Grön Ungdom (environmental party youth movement). Stefan Löfven is one of the few who at least made a start torwards becoming a worker in that he was training to become a welder before he became a full-time labour union representative followed by a career in the SAP (social democratic worker's party).
How many of them have college degrees? How many of them have parents that had college degrees? How many of them got a lot of money from their parents?
I'd say that most of our politicians don't have any of those. They might be career politicians, but if they didn't become politicians they would have had a working class career. You can't say the same for many American politicians.
a) Once they get elected, they're no longer working class. You're making the same mistake Lenin's followers did but on a smaller scale. b) They can manipulate an entrte country of strangers to get elected but not the people over whom they have an information advantage and other more direct sources of power (including rewards)? Think it through a bit more.
> Once they get elected, they're no longer working class.
Not exactly, your class is as much determined by your friends and family as your job. People with a background in Ivy leagues, law school or wealthy parents like basically all American politicians don't have many or even any working class friends so face no peer pressure to protect working class people.
> They can manipulate an entrte country of strangers to get elected but not the people over whom they have an information advantage and other more direct sources of power (including rewards)?
They didn't manipulate people to get elected, they got elected since they represent the people well. They can't give rewards to their friends and family or it would be a scandal, Sweden has very little tolerance of corruption. Simple things like buying groceries with tax money instead of their salary or creating hard to find job postings to get friends into jobs creates headlines and has forced people to resign.
Politicians can't be shittier than you let them be. If you tolerate corrupt behavior you will get corrupt behavior. If you don't then they will conform since they don't want to lose their positions.
Class is determined by how much property you own and how much power you have. You're talking about culture and relationships. Many millionaires have poor freinds and that doesn't change the class of either.
One of the key things about the Swedish labour market model is that both sides of the political spectrum find it (agreements) better than the alternative (rigid laws for e.g. minimum wages). The same goes for both ends of the agreements (the employers' organizations and the unions).
This is why it works. It's also why it isn't very sensitive to corruption and political changes.
I think the union rep from Handels is correct. They'll get Amazon to cave.
Amazon is the quintessential hill to die on for the unions and the labour laws are incredibly strong in Sweden. Here's how I think it might play out if Amazon refuses to sign:
- Handels requests collective bargaining
- Amazon declines but are sued in court and loses (you are required to bargain)
- Negotiations fail and Amazon refuses to sign
- The union realises that this is their David v Goliath and blockades the company
- Amazon refuses to cave
- The union declares widespread "sympathetic strikes".
- in the end garbage collectors will refuse to pick up garbage at their warehouse. Electricians will refuse to service their warehouse. Plumbers will not plumb. Workers, builders, postmen etc will all simply stop servicing Amazon. Companies that deal with Amazon can also be put in a blockade.
- Amazon will also receive zero support for from politicians for two reasons, first it's not a political matter. Second even the right wing opposition party will know better than to go against the electorate on this matter.
It's simply not possible to operate a large scale business in Sweden without support of the labour unions (or by having workers conditions that exceed the perceived minimum). If a large scale business wants to operate in the country they _must_ sign a collective bargaining agreement.
TL;DR: refusal to sign a collective agreement escalated into an all-out boycott of the company. In the end, the workers won.
"Toys “R” Us was both an exception to the rule —even McDonald's was forced to sign a collective agreement — and a warning for other corporations that they must adapt to the Swedish model or fail"
I think you are mostly right. But I cannot recall when the last time was when the unions blockaded a company of Amazon's size. All my memories of this from the news involved smaller businesses, which of course crumble under the pressure. If plumbers and electricians will blockade, that is one thing, it might be possible to source these services from abroad. But if delivery drivers will not show up that is something entirely different, that is so central to their business that it is hard to circumvent.
This is maybe not a fight Amazon is eager to have in any case. So I think it will play out slightly different.
It has adverse effects, the unemployment rate and particularly the youth unemployment rate are quite high in Sweden (pre-covid).
Indeed, the median disposable income per person (adjusted for purchasing power) in the US is almost $20,000 higher than in Sweden, even after further adjustments for transfers in kind received by households, such health or education provided for free or at reduced prices by government and NPISHs.
>Indeed, the median disposable income per person (adjusted for purchasing power) in the US is almost $20,000 higher than in Sweden
I don't know, that sounds off to me. I have seen article about US preparedness for covid, and it said that some crazy percentage of people have no more than $1000 in savings. It was something around 40%.
Maybe this $20,000 higher than in Sweden, is result of median outliers ultra rich that push the true average income of an average person.
I'm not so sure, and I'll explain why below on one of your points.
> in the end garbage collectors will refuse to pick up garbage at their warehouse. Electricians will refuse to service their warehouse. Plumbers will not plumb. Workers, builders, postmen etc will all simply stop servicing Amazon. Companies that deal with Amazon can also be put in a blockade.
Outside of employing builders directly, it's my understanding that Amazon has previously operated in-house alternatives for those, particularly to reduce the costs in their supply chain and operations. I wonder if this would lead to Amazon instead scaling up the self sufficiency instead?
You absolutely have a point but I also think that you perhaps don't have the social or historical context to understand how deeply rooted unions are in Swedish society.
The Toysrus strike has been mentioned and at the time the unions did not even use all means at their disposal.
In the event of a general strike bus drivers could well refuse to stop at bus stops servicing the warehouse. Banks will refuse to process transactions for the company. Members will refuse to give them their business (4 million or so out of the total 10 million population). All of this happened to Toysrus.
Nearly 90% of workers in the country are members of a union and most will follow a general boycott if urged to do so.
There really isn't much of a choice here. They don't have to sign an agreement, but they certainly will not be profitable unless they do.
As was stated in the article, there is no government mandated minimum wage in Sweden as most jobs that would be covered under a minimum wage are negotiated union wages. Union members looking out for other union members, that way all workers benefit in the end.
You can hire your own cleaning staff obviously (how very 1980's) but it's going to be extrenmely difficult and expensive to be self sufficient on everything from water, garbage pickup, electricity and so on.
I order quite a bit from amazon.de to Denmark, hoping this will be a better experience. I do feel quite bad knowing how the german workers are treated at the warehouse/fulfillment centers, I am definitely hoping Swedens labor unions can make a dent here while still keeping the price low enough.
If the quality of item descriptions is anything like Amazon.DE's right now, maybe other Swedish online retailers don't need to worry too much. It's already possible for me to buy from Amazon in Sweden (Amazon.DE ships to Sweden, using PostNord no less), but the listings are poor quality and you can't trust it. I only use it as a last resort. (Mind you, I also avoid Amazon because I don't like their business practices.)
It should also be mentioned that e-commerce is easier in Sweden than in some other countries. The ubiquity of electronic ID, the national address database and rapid bank transfers mean that even if you do not use PayPal, creating an account and ordering with a new website is very quick and requires entering almost no personal details yourself. Many websites even let you pay by invoice.
They don't because the Swedish and European union organization is not as confrontational in company level as US style enterprise bargaining is.
Sweden has mostly sectoral bargaining. Many/most things are negotiated between the unions and trade associations, not between union and individual enterprise. When Amazon sits to talk with unions (70% of workers belong to union), they discover that many things have been settled in a bigger table.
Thanks to strong unions and labor laws Sweden is the worker's paradise and everybody has a great job. If Amazon wants to entice people to work for them then they must make a better offer than all* existing employers. What is there for the unions to negotiate? Please don't bash me for the cynicism. I am trying to figure out the logic behind all of this.
* edit: What meant say is that Amazon must offer a job that's better than the jobs that people currently have for them to switch.
“The Swedish model” is to put laws like this in place mostly to level the negotiation positions of the parties. What rules to actually apply is expected to be negotiated between the unions and the employers on top of that.
(As a side note the current government is actually just about to abolish one of the corner stones of those laws (“LAS”, the law of employment protection). Due to a deal they cut with the opposition parties in order to be allowed to form government)
I’m not sure it’s really a corner stone. Saltsjöbadsavtalen and the Swedish model of collective bargaining came much earlier. Amuingly, LAS was introduced by a liberal goverment against the protests of the social democrats who felt that it infringed on the bargaining power of the unions.
Sweden hasn't got as many labor laws as you would imagine. There are no minimum wages, for instance. It's all "voluntary" agreements with the unions. Pretty standard things though, limits on wages, work hours and such.
These agreements are not so much voluntary of course, since without an agreement in place it's hard to do any business in the country at all. Some try out of stubbornness but it's just an expensive way to accomplish nothing.
The alternative would be meddling politicians and nobody wants that. Unions are expected to have a bit more domain knowledge, and these agreements are re-negotiated every few years to get rid of obsolete rules and introduce new ones.
It helps that the labor unions are centralized, professionalized, and has vested interests in the long term survival of the companies they regulate, because of the trust required to make it work. If it is a good system I do not know, but it does provide for a stable labor market with almost no strikes, for which an agreement is a small price to pay.
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[ 1.5 ms ] story [ 247 ms ] thread> If they can operate in Germany, they can operate in Sweden.
During the lockdown here in France Amazon was forced to close some warehouses and filfillment centers under pressure from unions (among other pressures, of course). It was big news for a week or so, and deliveries seemed to pause briefly before being picked up from German warehouses, too. After a week or so we started getting our deliveries again, usually with an extra day of delay because it was being fulfilled from Germany.
I suspect they will eventually do a deal with the Swedish unions but that, in the meantime, trucking things in from Germany will allow them to become established.
In some other industries (shipping) you have to be really careful to do that. There's various laws against breaking up (the effectiveness of) a strike. That's currently often only applied within one country. If Amazon does something similar more often enough they'll probably get hit with an EU-wide law instead.
It's always weird that internet based companies aren't treated like any other company. Unfair competition IMO.
They weren't shut down, that was Amazons decision. The court only told them to reduce operations to specific categories of its store site - the idea was to somehow reduce operations to a safe amount as Amazon had repeatedly failed to so by itself. Amazon then made up the nebulous "essential products" category and made sure to complain loudly about the supposed nonsense the court required while it shut down french warehouses completely.
I don't understand whats the problem with that?
According to Amazon they found it difficult to workout what was and wasn't an essential item according to the rules. I would imagine with a catalog as big amazon that's probably true. They decided to shutdown instead which is perfectly rational given the amount fines placed upon them if they did accidentally ship an item. The goverment got what they requested, no non essential items shipped.
I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them.
> I would imagine amazon would have preferred to keep operating, so I believe them.
This was an union driven lawsuit. Shutting down operations to stamp out union activity is rather common with companies large enough to cover the short term costs of it.
Put itself above the law to gain a competitive advantage is unacceptable to me. And now they are making a lot of publicity on tv to remend the damage. A little too late, I'm boycotting them personally.
Amazon has a huge catalog compared to other retailers, and trying to categorise that without mistakes would be difficult and prone to errors.
And no, Amazon has the same catalog as other French retailer, at least in France. Amazon just chose to play dumb with both catalog filtering demands AND physical distances in warehouses.
They complied with the law and shut down. This further limited covid risks for their workers.
During this month they were to keep operations artificially low. As far as I could find the court cut down the categories they could sell to around 10% of what they normally sold to ensure reduced activity. They were also reminded to enforce the existing social distancing rules, avoid large meetings, etc. . I currently regret not keeping a link to the list of categories around when I found it shortly after the court case, now Google only seems to return a flood of news pages all repeating the same source free articles.
Whats the problem with that?
People seem resentful they closed because they calculated it wasn't worth operating. What do people expect? increase the difficulty of doing business and you won't have business operating.
I also suspect they felt they would be dealt with unfairly compared to native retailers, as the goverment has called Amazon a threat the French way of life and other rhetoric.
One notable difference with a strike is that employees kept receiving their pay.
They are bloodsucking leeches, benefiting from the work done by real proper unions, and their members are rightfully shunned in some workplaces.
We have government that is built on anti-communist PR, whilst using Soviet guidebook on how to run a country. Including censorship, misinformation, erosion of democratic institution and processes.
Heck they even have an ex-communist prosecutor in government!
So you can bet Poland is political concrete block.
(this is attempt at slightly humorous post through gritted teeth)
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse...
Why compare Sweden with a Polish warehouse workers and not investigate how e.g. Amazon.fr operates? That country at least goes on strike significantly more often (probably more so than the rest of the EU combined). Meaning, one year I noticed them on strike every other week to protest some intended government plan, even though the company had nothing to do with that, plus they only went on strike during the night.
> Initially, Swedish and Nordic clients will be mainly served from German warehouses — known as fulfillment centers in Amazon-speak — with trucks driving up to Sweden through Denmark, and a fulfillment center operated by local partner Kuehne + Nagel in the Swedish town of Eskilstuna, near Stockholm.
So partly they question if they'll operate a warehouse, but at the same time, there's going to be a warehouses. Only difference is that someone else does the logistics for them.
What usually happens with different standards of living is that the companies raise their prices a bit. Not sure why the article does not go into that.
EU is planning some changes in the trucking cabotage laws, see e.g. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/202.... This might (according to articles) make it more difficult to only use truckers from certain countries (e.g. whomever has the lowest standard of living / wage). Might also benefit the environment by ensuring companies might reduce the amount of trucking.
Sweden is a little unique in that we have fewer strikes than most European countries. The reason is the "fredsplikt": as long as there is a collective bargaining agreement in place, if a worker goes on strike they can be legally laid off for shirking work.
So, strikes will only happen at most every two-three years when the current agreement expires. And while then there may be a threat of strike, it seldom comes to that.
In contrast, in most contries (notably France), unions may do "political strikes" to express opinions.
Amazon won't be worried about their Swedish employees unpredictably going on strike for better terms. They will be worrying about having to agree to the same collective agreement as competing businesses. They will not get to push salaries lower than others, or squeeze slightly more hours or shorter breaks. So, they will have to look forward to their profits coming from economy of scale and not mistreatment of their warehouse workers. They will not be able to keep prices 10% lower than competitors while keeping the same profit margin, the way they do in the U.S.
Until they sign an agreement, workers at other companies will likely put them under blockade, which means truckers from suppliers will refuse to ship to Amazon's Swedish warehouse; Postal workers will not pick up shipments to consumers; Caterers and conference centres won't service management meetings; Electricians will not service their warehouse; Garbage will not get picked up, etc. They can do some of this themselves, instead, but that's a very high threshold to cross on day 1.
Amazon actually lobbies for higher salaries, it hurts the competitors who don't use as much automation and are not great at operational efficiency.
It's a myth the amazon pay low salaries. They they just optimise the heck out of everything.
It's pretty smart in many ways, as its great PR and destroys your competitors if its national law.
A lot of people think they forced amazon take this action, but strategically its great for amazon if they can raise the minimum wage. It will force other people out of business before causes them issues. It's calculated. They deliver more items per unit of labour then anyone else.
Collective bargain agreements are more difficult because its not national law. You can pay more but your competitors won't. But unions being unions will always ask for more if they think they can, even if they already pay well compared to other companies.
Do you have information on how well they are paid in Germany? I can't find any information on it other than amazon stating they pay well.
Companies are a lot smarter than people given them credit for. They use regulation to their own advantage, they're not against it. They will lobby for nice sounding regulation for PR reasons if they've calculated it harm others more then themselves. They just position themselves to take advantage of the regulation.
Most of the time companies with large amounts of capital are best place to do this. It's the small companies that get screwed.
I don't think salary levels are necessarily the chief way Amazon squeezes their workers harder than competitors - you're right that their minimum wage in the US is higher than the law mandates - but I would also love to see evidence of what their competition is paying. I'd bet they're not on the federal minimum wage, either!
It's not all automation though! Amazon is notorious for extreme work pressure. Too few and too short breaks, for example. This will absolutely not fly in Sweden. Not adapting properly to COVID-19 is another example of putting profits before working conditions.
If its the same rules, amazon will just use its huge amount of capital investment to gain those advantages instead. As it does now. In fact it will in Amazons advantage to raise conditions for entire country if it can.
The problem comes when governments intervene to disadvantage foreign companies over native companies to provide an advantage.
Talking about automation and then the warehouse bit:
Automation in warehouses is something that was in the news in Netherlands recently. Some supermarket opened an partly automated warehouse, the news brought it as something unique. From the comments it was clear that various other supermarkets did that already either years ago, recently or they have such more automated warehouses under construction. Apparently fully automated is very difficult.
Having an automated warehouse isn't something that another company cannot do and/or requires unique expertise. Apparently various supermarkets hired the same company to build their warehouse.
It's about operational efficiency. It's the culture. Things like kaizen, optimising everything, having teams that work out exactly where the products should go etc etc. How should the packing stations be positioned, how should they be designed? What slows down the workers on the packing stations? Small improvements to the tools they every day. Constant small improvements everyday. Anyone should be able to suggest improvements. Try multiple experiments, most of them won't work. It builds up like a flywheel overtime, and then other companies won't be able to catch up.
Companies try to replicate it, buts its harder then just buying a warehouse from company x. Frankly you need the leadership for it, and whole lot of time, money and patience for it to pay off.
Comparing any European country to France for striking is a bit absurd honestly.
Political strikes to express opinions is not really common in most European countries. It happens, rarely.
Obviously I don't know Swedish labour law.
What I'm after is something completely different: Amazon is able to operate in France just fine. I think France is NOT an easy country to operate in. Meaning, I think the article is not trying to pretend things are more difficult than they are in practice. Or: a non-story.
The bits you mention about collective labour agreements also applies to e.g. Netherlands. It partly there to also prevent unfair competition. The prices might be a bit higher or something, but again, not really a story.
It's interesting that other businesses restrict/block other companies. Within Netherlands the government (or at most a judge, possible due to unions) would ensure that such the company is forced to comply.
If the article actually mentioned the details where Amazon might try to ignore it, then go into detail why it would backfire, that would add something interesting. At the moment the article is poor and a non-story.
I don't believe this is strictly true. The "fredsplikt" (lit. "Duty of Peace") only applies to members of a signing, or co-signing union. So while the benefits of the collective bargaining agreement apply to all employees, the "sacrifices" do not apply to members of, say, other unions that do not sign the agreement. The most common example of this in practice is "SAC Syndikalisterna".
In practice though, strikes are unusual as they are a very ineffective means of negotiation unless very large, and therefore very expensive.
Generally it's funny how this region (Nordics) is reported in the media as some kinds of rationalist demi-gods, when in reality most politics here are just your regular smokescreen mixed with wishful thinking and a lack of understanding the real world.
In conclusion, politicians will do as politicians do nowerdays - drive their own career over the 'public good'.
The ruling Social Democratic Party has strong ties with the unions though.
its the other way around.
But hasn't this already happened with recent reforms regarding the limiting of strike rights [1] and current LAS negotiations.
[1] https://www.arbetaren.se/2019/06/19/riksdagen-klubbade-inskr...
It is abstractly a huge deal and practically a huge deal for Hamnen, SAC, Brandmännens Riksförbund and other alternative unions because it excludes all competition among unions and channels all reform through the internal political workings of those unions like LO/Kommunal. As the a laywer in Arbetaren explained (and others have explained elsewhere) previously, it allows for company (i.e. "yellow") unions which is a realistic problem now considering Amazon is involved.
Worst case-scenario for Amazon is that we'll see some kind of stand-off where multiple labor unions prevent their members from working for Amazon, or doing work for Amazon (usually things like truck drivers at other businesses going on strike instead of delivering good to/from Amazon).
Amazon have a pretty good alternative, so they'll only warehouse in Sweden if it makes economic sense vs Germany + Poland. As for the unions, their incentives and alternatives may be different to the union members too.
I... wouldn't do that.
There are few type of those, and you are looking for someone who knows what they are talking about and talk about shortcomings of a given product. They are usually pro's that have some experience with given category of a product. So they know what they want.
If you find one like that its ease to judge what features you need vs features pros need.
Usually, 1 stars are by entitled complainers (unless product is cheap knockoff) and 5 stars are by people that don't know what they are talking about or brought reviews.
It makes sense in my mind that the buyer should be the one to pay for the handling of what they buy. I don't want to subsidise your shopping/shipping via my taxes, they're high enough as it is.
Another factor in the nonsensicality of this tariff is that Sweden is more or less the only country which starts charging sales tax (called moms here, comparable with VAT in the UK, BTW in the Netherlands etc.) from a value of 0kr (i.e. free, but sales tax is paid on the shipping costs). Where other European countries start charging sales tax when the value of imported goods rises above (e.g.) €20, Sweden starts at €0. Many parcels ordered from China fall under that rate which make it a very common thing to be represented with the following:
Mind, this is not the shipping fee as that was already paid for in the €4 purchase price. If the same parcel were ordered to the Netherlands the customer would pay €4 and that's it, no import fees and no tariffs.The so-called "handling fee" is nothing but an excuse to put a tariff on international trade for individuals, a way to make sure the fruits of globalisation stay out of reach of the public.
But whenever I see: "sold by X" through their platform you can usually find a cheaper offer on their own website.
Also, stock co-mingling. That alone makes me buy as little from amazon and as much from elsewhere as I can.
And I’m not sure we have co-mingling here because I never heard of the problems that seem to be common in the US (/ on HN) with it and also never experienced it myself (I spend around 2.200 € on Amazon per year)
We do, the seller setting for that ("Barcode preference") is there in the Seller Central Europe and the help text explicitly talks about commingling.
I've had one item sold by Amazon as new that was clearly a fraud return, though, i.e. the item inside the product package was switched for a different model.
I think it’s the type of issue where it would be a major problem for the producer of a specific product that got ripped off, and any customers who are fans of that product, but may never affect the average buyer.
The only reviews you can vaguely trust are the non-5 star ones.
Everybody? I dont. Im in Sweden. So your statement is false.
The few Swedish friends I showed this article to were actually happy to hear that they might have a local Amazon coming soon?
Based on what I've read and this article, it doesn't sound like that much will change once it officially "launches" a Swedish site, although maybe Amazon will lower the minimum amount for free shipping or speed up regular shipping time. Re: this article, I can see them being willing to hold off for quite some time.
Also to note: During the Covid-19 peak in Sweden, Amazon provided to-the-door delivery using Postnord, which I figured was somewhat of an experiment for when the Swedish site launched. It's pretty rare here in e-commerce to get door deliveries - most online shopping is sent to local convenience stores and you need to go and pick up.
I always find it a great contrast to compare to premium shipping companies like DHL and FedEx, whenever I'm unlucky enough to get a delivery from them from overseas. They're still stuck in a world of "we'll deliver between 9am and 6pm, be ready" and they also make little attempt to ask for door codes if you live in the inner city, so most first attempts end up with "premises was not accessible" with no convenient way to give them the four digit code they need. I spent 1+ hour on hold last week with DHL and FedEx for this exact purpose. It will be interesting to see how "modern" of an approach Amazon takes.
It's quite weird at first but in my experience works surprisingly well. Very rarely one has to go queue in the post office to collect the parcel.
Am I missing anything?
I'll continue supporting the local competition (for books and media) in any case.
This is how democracy is supposed to work.
Have you looked at the current Swedish government? You'll be hard pressed to find people with "working class backgrounds" there, they're mostly political broilers who started their career in the SSU (social democrat youth movement) or Grön Ungdom (environmental party youth movement). Stefan Löfven is one of the few who at least made a start torwards becoming a worker in that he was training to become a welder before he became a full-time labour union representative followed by a career in the SAP (social democratic worker's party).
I'd say that most of our politicians don't have any of those. They might be career politicians, but if they didn't become politicians they would have had a working class career. You can't say the same for many American politicians.
Not exactly, your class is as much determined by your friends and family as your job. People with a background in Ivy leagues, law school or wealthy parents like basically all American politicians don't have many or even any working class friends so face no peer pressure to protect working class people.
> They can manipulate an entrte country of strangers to get elected but not the people over whom they have an information advantage and other more direct sources of power (including rewards)?
They didn't manipulate people to get elected, they got elected since they represent the people well. They can't give rewards to their friends and family or it would be a scandal, Sweden has very little tolerance of corruption. Simple things like buying groceries with tax money instead of their salary or creating hard to find job postings to get friends into jobs creates headlines and has forced people to resign.
Politicians can't be shittier than you let them be. If you tolerate corrupt behavior you will get corrupt behavior. If you don't then they will conform since they don't want to lose their positions.
Just "lol" to the rest.
This is why it works. It's also why it isn't very sensitive to corruption and political changes.
Amazon is the quintessential hill to die on for the unions and the labour laws are incredibly strong in Sweden. Here's how I think it might play out if Amazon refuses to sign:
- Handels requests collective bargaining
- Amazon declines but are sued in court and loses (you are required to bargain)
- Negotiations fail and Amazon refuses to sign
- The union realises that this is their David v Goliath and blockades the company
- Amazon refuses to cave
- The union declares widespread "sympathetic strikes".
- in the end garbage collectors will refuse to pick up garbage at their warehouse. Electricians will refuse to service their warehouse. Plumbers will not plumb. Workers, builders, postmen etc will all simply stop servicing Amazon. Companies that deal with Amazon can also be put in a blockade.
- Amazon will also receive zero support for from politicians for two reasons, first it's not a political matter. Second even the right wing opposition party will know better than to go against the electorate on this matter.
It's simply not possible to operate a large scale business in Sweden without support of the labour unions (or by having workers conditions that exceed the perceived minimum). If a large scale business wants to operate in the country they _must_ sign a collective bargaining agreement.
TL;DR: refusal to sign a collective agreement escalated into an all-out boycott of the company. In the end, the workers won.
"Toys “R” Us was both an exception to the rule —even McDonald's was forced to sign a collective agreement — and a warning for other corporations that they must adapt to the Swedish model or fail"
This is maybe not a fight Amazon is eager to have in any case. So I think it will play out slightly different.
Indeed, the median disposable income per person (adjusted for purchasing power) in the US is almost $20,000 higher than in Sweden, even after further adjustments for transfers in kind received by households, such health or education provided for free or at reduced prices by government and NPISHs.
https://data.oecd.org/hha/household-disposable-income.htm
I don't know, that sounds off to me. I have seen article about US preparedness for covid, and it said that some crazy percentage of people have no more than $1000 in savings. It was something around 40%.
Maybe this $20,000 higher than in Sweden, is result of median outliers ultra rich that push the true average income of an average person.
I'm not so sure, and I'll explain why below on one of your points.
> in the end garbage collectors will refuse to pick up garbage at their warehouse. Electricians will refuse to service their warehouse. Plumbers will not plumb. Workers, builders, postmen etc will all simply stop servicing Amazon. Companies that deal with Amazon can also be put in a blockade.
Outside of employing builders directly, it's my understanding that Amazon has previously operated in-house alternatives for those, particularly to reduce the costs in their supply chain and operations. I wonder if this would lead to Amazon instead scaling up the self sufficiency instead?
The Toysrus strike has been mentioned and at the time the unions did not even use all means at their disposal.
In the event of a general strike bus drivers could well refuse to stop at bus stops servicing the warehouse. Banks will refuse to process transactions for the company. Members will refuse to give them their business (4 million or so out of the total 10 million population). All of this happened to Toysrus.
Nearly 90% of workers in the country are members of a union and most will follow a general boycott if urged to do so.
There really isn't much of a choice here. They don't have to sign an agreement, but they certainly will not be profitable unless they do.
As was stated in the article, there is no government mandated minimum wage in Sweden as most jobs that would be covered under a minimum wage are negotiated union wages. Union members looking out for other union members, that way all workers benefit in the end.
It should also be mentioned that e-commerce is easier in Sweden than in some other countries. The ubiquity of electronic ID, the national address database and rapid bank transfers mean that even if you do not use PayPal, creating an account and ordering with a new website is very quick and requires entering almost no personal details yourself. Many websites even let you pay by invoice.
https://apnews.com/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f
And if they think they need to revolutionize the labor market to be profitable (enough), would they really establish a presence in Sweden then?
My feeling is they'll establish a business like everyone else and not even try to pull a Toys'R'Us.
Sweden has mostly sectoral bargaining. Many/most things are negotiated between the unions and trade associations, not between union and individual enterprise. When Amazon sits to talk with unions (70% of workers belong to union), they discover that many things have been settled in a bigger table.
* edit: What meant say is that Amazon must offer a job that's better than the jobs that people currently have for them to switch.
(As a side note the current government is actually just about to abolish one of the corner stones of those laws (“LAS”, the law of employment protection). Due to a deal they cut with the opposition parties in order to be allowed to form government)
These agreements are not so much voluntary of course, since without an agreement in place it's hard to do any business in the country at all. Some try out of stubbornness but it's just an expensive way to accomplish nothing.
The alternative would be meddling politicians and nobody wants that. Unions are expected to have a bit more domain knowledge, and these agreements are re-negotiated every few years to get rid of obsolete rules and introduce new ones.
It helps that the labor unions are centralized, professionalized, and has vested interests in the long term survival of the companies they regulate, because of the trust required to make it work. If it is a good system I do not know, but it does provide for a stable labor market with almost no strikes, for which an agreement is a small price to pay.