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Verdi said in a statement that workers at six of the nine Amazon
warehouses were joining the strike, which will run until Dec. 24
at four of the centers and for shorter periods at the others.
Germany is Amazon's second-biggest market after the United
States with 10,000 warehouse staff plus more than 10,000
seasonal workers.
A Verdi spokeswoman said the union expected a similar number of
workers to join the strike as previously, when hundreds of staff
walked off the job at several warehouses.
But an Amazon spokeswoman said only a small minority of staff
were on strike.
"There is absolutely no impact on our customer delivery promise.
The vast majority of our employees are working," she said,
noting that Amazon uses a network of 29 warehouses across Europe
to fulfill orders.
Verdi has organized frequent strikes at Amazon since May 2013 as
it seeks to force the retailer to raise pay for warehouse
workers in accordance with collective bargaining agreements in
Germany's mail order and retail industry.
Amazon has repeatedly rejected the union's demands, saying it
regards warehouse staff as logistics workers and that they
receive above-average pay by the standards of that industry.
(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; editing by Jason Neely)
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