The weekend passed quickly due to the media's hot discussion about the first day of Igret's listing. In the new week, when the North American stock market opened, Igret's stock price continued to rise for three consecutive days, with its market value breaking through US$260 billion. The Nasdaq technology stock market also continued to rise rapidly.

Until October 12th.

James Mann, a former employee of the logistics and distribution center of Amazon Online Mall in Wisconsin, suddenly filed a lawsuit in the local court, accusing the online mall team of illegally stopping its employees from forming a trade union to protect their legitimate rights and interests, and maliciously suppressing union advocates.

James Mann, 37, applied to be a sorter at Amazon's Wisconsin Logistics and Distribution Center last year. In the public prosecution documents, the middle-aged man claimed that he was suppressed because he actively called on the distribution center employees to form a union after joining the company last year. He was fired in June this year and has been unemployed and is still at home.

James Mann asked Egret to make an official written apology for the matter, regaining the importance of ensuring the legitimate rights and interests of workers and asking for compensation of a total of $16 million.

In an interview with a local TV station, James Mann also pointed his finger at Simon and Egret, accusing the IGret IPO of making a large number of people a billionaire and millionaires. However, employees of the Wisconsin distribution factory can only earn $9 an hourly salary in long, boring and repetitive work every day, far less than the $23 an hourly salary this former employee who once worked at the General Motors factory received.

James Mann believes that this serious unfair state is mainly due to the current severe suppression of trade union organizations by various companies, which makes it impossible for lower-level workers to protect their rights and interests. Therefore, in the interview, he also called on the employees of the distribution center to unite again to form a trade union.

The reaction of the Egret media public relations team was very timely.

The details of Mann's dismissal were also released on Wisconsin local TV stations at the first time. The reason for the middle-aged man's dismissal had nothing to do with the union. Instead, he seriously violated the work regulations and treated customer packages roughly. As evidence, the public relations team also played the video of Mann throwing multiple packages into a conveyor belt and even smashing them on one of the packages on the TV station.

The public relations team did not ignore the union issues and salary issues raised by Mann, and directly took out the Wisconsin Distribution Center employee voting record on whether to establish a union in February this year. The distribution center has more than 1,500 employees, and only 21% of employees who voted to form a union, and 79% of employees opposed the establishment of a union.

In addition, the hourly salary of the distribution center is 1.8 times the legal hourly salary standard of Wisconsin's $5, which is not counting the medical insurance and other benefits expenses provided by Egret to employees. In comparison, the average hourly salary for each employee, including various benefits, has reached $13.

Such salary levels are already top in the local industry.

As for James Mann recalling the high-paying past of General Motors Factory, he directly ignored it. Many people on the Rust Belt missed the glory of the Great Lakes region as the global automotive industry center, and missed the super high treatment of working alone and enjoying benefits for the whole family. It seems that few people are willing to reflect on how all this has become a passing cloud?

Is the union greedy and uncontrollable demands that auto companies can’t survive?

Blue-collar workers in ordinary automobile factories receive higher salaries than university professors. Of course, fairness is fair, and no one will pay attention to whether it is reasonable or not.

However.

If the skin does not exist, where will the hair be attached?

Regarding Egret's clarification, James Mann immediately fought back, claiming that he was insulted by a supervisor of the distribution center that day, and then released a recording, roughly the audio of a male voice quarreling with Mann. The reason was that Mann went to the bathroom too many times during work, which became a bargaining chip for middle-aged people, and denounced the distribution center as an infringement of the basic personal rights of employees.

Igrit continued to respond, refuting that James Mann's recording was a cut out-of-context uprising. Moreover, according to the recollections of the parties, Mann frequently left the post to go to the bathroom during that time, but went there four times that morning. Some employees said that the other party did not try to solve their physiological needs, but hid in the bathroom to smoke, and was obviously maliciously lazy.

James Mann immediately fired back.

Smoking and slacking off work is a complete slander, mainly because middle-aged people happened to be sick during that period.

You come and I go.

This kind of dispute will definitely not be resolved in a short period of time, and it will definitely be delayed for a long time. Igret, who has a strong legal team, is not afraid of such procrastination, and just counterattacks whenever he wants.

Simon never felt that many things happened for no reason.

Just like this time.

After some investigation, the results were soon obtained. One partner of the Wisconsin law firm that supported James Mann's lawsuit against Egrit, happened to be the husband of an assistant team of Democratic Senator Craig Ames who lost the election last year.

Some small relationships are clear and clear, but they are a little bit clear.

The other party suddenly started such a thing, and the most likely thing was to prepare for next year's election. 1996 was not just the year of the presidential election, but also the year of the two-year change of membership.

The local Democrats in Wisconsin are clearly hoping to regain the initiative lost in last year's midterm elections.

The term of office of a senator is six years.

Robert Hotwell, who defeated Craig Ames last year, was still quite stable, and the other senator was not in the year of the change of term. The Democrats could only find a replacement from the biennial Household election. In addition, in the 1992 election, Clinton won 10 electoral votes in Wisconsin. This is not an optional number. If something happened, it probably also has the consideration of encouraging the lower-level public to consolidate this vote.

The major unions in the Rust Belt have always been hard-core supporters of the Democratic Party.

As for the moral integrity of the Clintons, it doesn’t matter whether they want to be in the White House position.

Simon believes the lawsuit is just an appetizer.

The current state of the Westeros system can no longer be described as a wood showing off in the forest. It is like a towering tree standing on a flat grassland, and any evil spirit can be found.

Sure enough, after Robert Mann sued, another weekend passed. On October 16, more than 200 truck drivers under the three contractors responsible for the transportation of Wisconsin distribution centers suddenly announced a strike, which directly paralyzed the business of the distribution center.

The usual strikes are often carried out after the employee and the employer have broken down.

This time it happened suddenly.

Complete surprise attack.

The news soon broke out that it turned out that the truck drivers under one of the contractors were dissatisfied with the company's compensation for the traffic accident that had been entangled with for more than a month. Therefore, the American Truck Driver Union made a decision directly and directly bypassed the contractor in the form of a strike to propose conditions to Igrit Company, requiring Igrit to give up the contractor model and set up an exclusive transportation department to directly hire a truck driver team.

If the negative litigation last week was just an appetizer that suppressed the rise in Igret's stock price, the sudden strike of the truck driver caused a large logistics distribution center under Amazon to paralyze, which would be a very obvious direct impact.

The interest relationship involved in this matter is also quite complicated.

Not to mention the political level, even the short sellers who are planning to short the Westeros system technology stocks, but the matter itself is quite tangled.

The matter starts with the operation model of the Amazon logistics distribution system.

The current Amazon online mall logistics and distribution system is only an initial stage of the development of e-commerce. Amazon builds logistics and distribution centers across the United States, and only completes the first phase of delivery from Amazon warehouses to contracted express companies, rather than direct delivery to customers.

Because traditional American express delivery is both expensive and slow, the official takes the initiative to be responsible for the first phase of delivery, which can not only improve efficiency and shorten the delivery schedule, but also greatly reduce costs. After completing the first phase of delivery, USPS and other express delivery companies obtain express delivery, they will use their own perfect nationwide delivery network to deliver the package to specific customers.

During the construction of Amazon's current primary delivery system, in order to avoid the entanglement of the huge American truck driver union, it chose the outsourcing model and split the transportation business to different small transportation companies instead of setting up its own transportation team.

This is a plan designed by Simon based on the Amazon operating model he remembers.

The employees of the logistics and distribution center are new jobs, so there is no old trade union to rely on, so it is relatively easy to stop these employees from establishing trade unions.

The truck driver union in the United States has existed for many years, like the American Auto Workers Federation, with a total of 1.4 million union members, which is even larger than the Auto Workers Federation, which is rapidly declining.

The e-commerce business is destined to be inseparable from truck transportation that bears more than 70% of the domestic transportation capacity of the United States.

Therefore, it can only be detoured.

Adding a layer of contractor will inevitably increase costs to a certain extent. However, in the long run, Egret can definitely save more by avoiding direct contact with the truck driver union.

Otherwise, if the transportation department is established to directly hire truck drivers, as the e-commerce business of Igret continues to grow, hundreds of thousands of truck drivers who are attached to the Amazon logistics and distribution network in the future will definitely become Igret's nightmare, and the negative impact will be no less than the Auto Workers Federation, which is still attached to the American auto enterprise giants.

Why are the government departments in the United States so inefficient that they were likened to otters in the later Zootopia? Why are the service quality of American airlines so poor that they often violently entertain customers and even make passengers bleed? Why are some municipal projects in the United States so small sections of road repairs that can be completed in one day in China but often delayed for several months? It is all because of the union.

Be confident and fearless.

Major automobile giants in the United States can also reduce costs by relocating factories overseas. Igrit's e-commerce business obviously does not have the feasibility of doing so. If the conditions of the truck driver union are agreed to, and the direct transportation department is backed by the union and the continuous demand for high salaries and benefits and completely loses efficiency, there is no need for Igrit's Amazon online mall to exist.

There is never a shortage of smart people in this world.

Igrit's outsourcing strategy is not obscure. The American Truck Driver Union found that it is difficult for its members to gain advantage from a large group of small transportation companies. Igrit, who has just completed its IPO, is a fat oily presence, which will naturally have the intention of taking advantage of the big players.

This sudden attack was obviously a test.

If Egret compromises in Wisconsin, the next thing will be very easy. As long as a large number of truck drivers go from indirect contractor employees to formal employees of Egret, the company is not allowed to be controlled by the American Truck Driver Union at will.

Both sides understood their mutual intentions. The truck driver union suddenly attacked, and Igrit was also straightforward. Several responsible persons understood what would happen if the truck driver union succeeded, so they decisively suspended the operation of the Wisconsin distribution center.

Then it's still a verbal battle.

The truck driver union suddenly chose to strike without any communication, and this time Igret was actually the party that was in the right way.

However, the Truck Driver Union wanted to communicate directly with Igret, but this side would not let him succeed. While publicly accusing the Truck Driver Union of its reckless strike and lack of loyalty, Igret made another move, declaring that it would pursue the losses caused to Igret by the three contractors.

Anyway, it is completely unanimous to accept the words of the American Truck Driver Union asking Igret to set up a direct transportation department, and he doesn't even think about the conversation. He just urges the Truck Driver Union and the contractor to resolve the differences as soon as possible.

The Wisconsin Distribution Center is mainly responsible for delivery services in five central states.

While suspending the Wisconsin distribution center, the Amazon team also used other channels to make up for the market gap caused by the shutdown of the distribution center to the greatest extent. It also launched a local public opinion in Wisconsin, saying that once the Wisconsin distribution center is shut down for more than two weeks and the business is taken over by other distribution centers, Egret will lay off employees of the Wisconsin distribution center.

Those truck drivers who suddenly strike will be blacklisted by Igret.

When the news spread, many people were stunned.

Located in the Rust Belt, Wisconsin is the state with the highest unemployment rate in recent years. The unemployment rate has only dropped from 8.6% two years ago to 6.1%, still exceeding the current federal unemployment rate of 5.6%.

Therefore, jobs such as employees of Amazon FLTD, which have very low thresholds and salary levels are actually very rare. Otherwise, even if the union votes at the beginning of the year, even with the official lobbying factor, only 21% of the employees of the distribution center would vote in favor.

The salary of $9 is also a figure that Simon personally finalized. In the initial plan of the housekeeper, the basic salary standard given was only $7.

Not only to a group of executives, but also to the entire Westerosian system, Simon has been deliberately giving a relatively high treatment because he always believes that this can greatly mobilize employees' enthusiasm and generate loyalty and sense of belonging.

In addition to the relatively generous salary, the school where the children of the Wisconsin Distribution Center employees are located has been specially cared for by the Westerosian Family Foundation for more than a year. In the future, all descendants of the "Westerosian" will have more opportunities to climb to the top.

However, relatively high is by no means outrageous, and Simon will not accept the restraint and coercion of the union.

If Simon is unwilling to give it to him, no one can come and rob it.

At the same time, the truck driver union suddenly attacked the e-commerce business of Igret, and other monsters and monsters began to jump around, which had a very intuitive impact.

On October 16, Egret's stock price fell by 2.1%, and then fell by more than 3% in the fluctuations in the following days. The strike continued until October 20. In five days, Egret's stock price fell by 6.2%. At the close of Friday, Egret's market value had fallen from US$253.7 billion on Monday to US$237.9 billion, and the book loss exceeded US$15 billion.
Chapter completed!