Last night (Thursday), RTL (commercial German network) put up an episode of Team-Wallraff. I'd describe the series (typically 90 to 120 minutes long for each episode) as an extreme investigative situation, and whoever they aim at.....gets a five-star mess on their hands.
The topic last night? Germans who work for Amazon. If you want to view the piece (for a limited time), it's up and viewable here.
They had a couple of reporters who were undercover and got hired to work at the warehouses or as delivery-personnel.
The curious thing....none of them worked for Amazon....they ended up working for a opaque company (a company under a company, under Amazon). You can laugh, but legally, it protects them from virtually all legal situations.
I would say by the end....you felt pretty sorry for the Team-Wallraff crew who had to work in these conditions.....but you felt really sorry for the folks trying to make a decent wage out of the situation. Two hours of exploitation, wage-dumping, surveillance activities, and constant 'fear'.
What'll likely happen? After the election is done....it wouldn't surprise me if the SPD picks up this topic and drags Amazon into a court. The problem is...if you go and screw with the business model....all of the Amazon delivery business suddenly doubles and triples in terms of the time-line. If you viewed the use of Amazon but had to accept two weeks being the norm for delivery....well, you'd halt your order and just drive down to your local town to buy the product there. The business model cost factor? You'd start to be the same cost as a local shop in your town.
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