
Amazon’s business model meets Sweden’s labor unions - ptr
https://www.politico.eu/article/amazons-cut-price-culture-meets-swedens-unions/
======
navidfarhadi
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.

~~~
redgc
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"

~~~
ornornor
Aren’t amazon reviews one of the most gamed review system ever?

Also, stock co-mingling. That alone makes me buy as little from amazon and as
much from elsewhere as I can.

~~~
wasmitnetzen
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.

~~~
wdb
I have received a few fake products from Amazon UK. Most of them were
counterfeit books though

------
TazeTSchnitzel
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.

------
docdeek
> 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.

~~~
bkor
> 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.

~~~
docdeek
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.

~~~
josefx
> so they were shutdown

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.

~~~
UK-Al05
French goverment was trying to apply rules which had a lot of grey area.
Amazon decided it was too risky so shut down.

~~~
josefx
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.

~~~
UK-Al05
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.

~~~
josefx
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.

~~~
UK-Al05
What requirements did they place on amazon then?

~~~
ldng
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.

~~~
UK-Al05
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.

~~~
ldng
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.

------
redgc
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.

~~~
redgc
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.

~~~
distances
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.

~~~
eridan2
My friends from Germany told me the small packages from Amazon are left at
your door

~~~
Semaphor
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.

------
gohbgl
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.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
“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)

~~~
oxymoron
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.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
Ok, I guess that makes more sense then. I was really surprised to see S (LO)
agree to that deal.

------
mikkelam
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.

------
eckesicle
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.

~~~
Krisando
> They'll get Amazon to cave.

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?

~~~
eckesicle
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.

~~~
mongol
Did banks really refuse to process their transactions? That is union overreach
I would say.

~~~
donarb
Not overreach, it's solidarity.

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.

~~~
mongol
Should the tax office employees not process their tax declaration either? I
mean, solidarity.

~~~
spanhandler
Sure? Is the objection just that you'd prefer laws to social pressure?

------
dsign
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.

~~~
Krisando
> Everybody in Sweden right now has an uneasy feeling about Amazon

The few Swedish friends I showed this article to were actually happy to hear
that they might have a local Amazon coming soon?

------
MattGaiser
Amazon is the kind of company to instead build high speed hovercraft and base
them in Poland or park a large warehouse offshore.

~~~
negamax
They also need to account for safety of goods and stability of their assets
and operations. So they will need stable political climate to operate.

~~~
me_me_me
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)

~~~
negamax
Got me! Haha!

------
alkonaut
Agree that Amazon won't upend the Swedish labor market model. But do they
really need to do that to operate with a healthy profit?

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.

~~~
nabla9
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.

------
LatteLazy
It will be interesting to see what happens. But right now, nothing has
happened...

------
legulere
Let’s hope it work out like toysˋrˋus:

[https://apnews.com/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f](https://apnews.com/6d245065b3faaadc70e6eb77e3e5c20f)

------
dmitriid
The most relevant quote:

> If they can operate in Germany, they can operate in Sweden.

~~~
wasmitnetzen
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.

------
guerrilla
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.

~~~
jeltz
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.

~~~
guerrilla
Swedish naiveté always amazes me.

~~~
username90
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.

This is how democracy is supposed to work.

~~~
Yetanfou
> 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).

~~~
username90
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.

------
waihtis
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'.

~~~
Jolter
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.

~~~
waihtis
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.

~~~
menybuvico
Sweden and Finland are pretty alike, but Sweden's system has a bit less
political interference compared to how it's here in Finland.

The ruling Social Democratic Party has strong ties with the unions though.

~~~
progre
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.

~~~
menybuvico
Yeah, my experiences with Swedish unions is definitely a bit dated, but I
guess SD's growth is messing things up a bit, especially in LO?

~~~
progre
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.

------
matsemann
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.

[1]: [https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-
warehouse...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse-
jobs-worker-conditions-bathroom-breaks)

~~~
progre
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.

~~~
aucontraire
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).

------
bkor
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...](https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/20200630STO82385/better-
working-conditions-for-truck-drivers-across-the-eu). 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.

~~~
Jolter
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.

~~~
UK-Al05
Amazon doesn't compete on lower salaries, it competes on automation.

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.

~~~
bildung
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?

~~~
UK-Al05
[https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-raises-minimum-
wage-15-...](https://www.geekwire.com/2018/amazon-raises-minimum-wage-15-hour-
vows-lead-push-higher-u-s-minimum-wage/)

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.

