As Amazon expands its reach into central Europe with plans to build three warehouses in Poland and two in the Czech Republic, the online retailer "is hoping that unions do not follow" and create the labor unrest that occurred in Germany last year, the Financial Times beyondbrics blog reported.
"In terms of unions themselves, we don't see a need for that," said Tim Collins, director for Amazon's EU logistics operations. "Any friction that gets between us and our associates slows down innovation, slows down change, slows down improvements on the shop floor, and we don't see that as being good at all."
Marek Lewandowski, a spokesman for the Solidarity labor union in Poland, said it might not be smooth sailing for Amazon there: "It's up to the workers to organize themselves, but we're here to help. Amazon won't scare us off."
The five planned warehouses will employ 10,000 permanent workers, beyondbrics noted, adding that Amazon does not have a retail presence in either country, though "it does plan to open websites there in the future, so the warehouses are geared at the west European market."
"The existing thrust will be the growth of our core network today, which is primarily west. And going forward it will be in indigenous markets and to the east," said Collins.
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Salon's Josh Eidelson wrote that in the wake of last week's defeat of a union organizing effort by a small group of Amazon workers in Middletown, Del., a union spokesperson blamed that result on a corporate campaign to make workers fear for their job and promised a much larger union campaign could be ahead at Amazon.
"Everything Amazon did had the underlying tone of fear," said International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers spokesperson John Carr, adding: "Every single day there was a new sort of rumor mill, or means of misportraying, misinformation--that we'll have to ship this work somewhere else, you name it."
