Navigating and instrumentalizing the uneven development of Europe: Amazon's German market as a case of (trans)national capital–labor struggles

Sarrah Kassem

Chapter 3 in Unpacking Global Amazon, 2026, pp 67-85 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: As Amazon expands east- and westward beyond the US, Germany has come to represent a crucial case for any discussion on Amazon and transnational capital–labor relations. This chapter examines more concretely how Amazon instrumentalizes both the national German context and transnational European Union context to undermine (trans)national labor organization, and how workers navigate this landscape (trans)nationally. By applying a historical materialist framework, I argue that Amazon aims to reduce the socially necessary turnover time for orders while pushing down labor costs. This translates into extending the employment structure of a core and precarious workforce of German warehouses to neighboring countries like Poland. This results both in wage-dumping and undermines labor organization given Amazon's decentralized network of warehouses. Workers must then navigate their own conditions and national labor struggles, while also organizing transnationally. Amazon's transnational network dialectically provides workers with challenges and potential opportunities to organize and mobilize.

Keywords: Amazon; Uneven Development; Choke Points; Dual Employment Structure; Germany; Poland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
ISBN: 9781035380442
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