Debate about wages Amazon and Zalando goes on

Yearly pay rise

A spokesperson of Zalando said to the Berliner
Morgenpost that the rise in pay was just ‘the usual annual pay rise’. About
2,500 employees of Zalando will be getting a higher wage – from 8.53 euro to
8.79 euro. The own distribution centres of Zalando have only been in use since
the autumn of last year, when the first ones opened up in Erfurt and
Brieselang, so it remains to be seen how ‘annual’ these rises really are.

Before the handling of orders from Zalando was
done at logistics partners – and it was at those companies that a German TV report
showed very bad working conditions. Zalando pointed a finger at its Dutch
partner Docdata, who was said to be responsible. The employees at Docdata
currently make between 7.58 euro and 7.80 euro, a lot lower than the people at
Zalando.

Higher wages at Amazon

At Amazon there have already been some strikes
concerning higher wages. The employees at the eight German warehouses of the
online retailer currently earn between 9.65 euro and 11.12 euro:
already more than at Zalando, but still too low according to union Ver.di, who
wants a pay between 11.47 euro and 11.96 euro.

According to Zalando it is normal that the
wages at Amazon are higher, because Zalando is a much younger company, founded in 2008 and still not making a profit. Last
year they even made a loss of over 90 million euro. Amazon also went into the
red that year.