Contested Amazonification: Comparing Amazon Workers’ Struggles in Italy and Poland

This paper examines the conditions, forms and consequences of workers' struggles at Amazon and its ecosystem of subcontractors in Poland and Italy, combining the inspirations of the power resources approach with the literature on the infrastructural power of big tech companies. The countries selected represent two traditionally considered semi-peripheral regions of Europe that differ in terms of trade union power resources and regulatory power of the state vis-à-vis platform companies, such as Amazon. Against this backdrop, two research questions are formulated: What kinds of power resources are mobilised by workers in Poland and Italy to counteract the infrastructural power of Amazon? How can we explain the similarities and differences in the forms of mobilisation (and non-mobilisation) of Amazon workers in both countries? Empirically, the paper takes advantage from secondary data, background interviews with industrial relations actors and semi-structured interviews with workers, employers’ and management in Amazon and its subcontractors (around 50 interviews in total). The analysis so far confirms two hypotheses formulated at the outset of the research. First, forms of workers' collective mobilisation are mediated but not determined by traditional trade union power resources, national institutions and employment and business practices of Amazon. Workers' innovative resistance practices continue to shape the local varieties of global 'Amazonification' even in Poland, where their overall power resources are weaker. Second, the Amazon effect is also visible in the international diffusion of some repertoires of discontent through union networks and critical media discourse, parallel to the diffusion of coercive company management practices. The latter outcome is explored with reference to the activities of the radical trade unions both in Poland and in Italy.