In the middle of the Christmas business period, a multi-day strike of workers at the mail order company Amazon started in the night of December 17th 2018.

The trade union Verdi called on Amazon employees of the mail-order center Saxony in Leipzig to strike until Christmas Eve. The workers at the mail-order center in Werne in North Rhine-Westphalia, are expected to go on strike until Tuesday this week.

According to a Verdi spokesman, the strike could soon be extended to many other locations in Germany and for a longer period and there is a risk that Christmas presents will not arrive on time.

The aim of the union is to create a uniform collective agreement, analogous to retail and mail order trade. Verdi has been calling on Amazon for more than five years to conduct collective negotiations.

The US company rejects this request. Amazon sees itself as a logistics provider and points to payments at the top of what is customary in the logistics industry.