Blitz-Bunt

How began and how ended the strike of couriers in the Sverdlovsk Distribution Center Ozon

At the weekend in Yekaterinburg, Ozon-courier drivers refused to go on a flight, announcing inappropriate working conditions and technical downtime. As the local media reported on Sunday, more than 70 employees refused to go out in the Sverdlovsk Distribution Center in flights, which significantly affected the company's work.

“In the warehouse, there is a delay in issuing goods, because of this, we get an irregular working day,” reported the words of one of the striking Komsomolskaya Pravda-Yekaterinburg. The correspondent of Novye went to the largest distribution center of the Sverdlovsk region to find out on the spot what happened in Ozon and what the courier themselves see the way out of the situation.

Visual demand

Announcements with an invitation to work in Ozon are pasted throughout Yekaterinburg - if not on every pillar, then certainly at every entrance. Salaries from 90 to 120 thousand rubles with official employment according to the TK, paid internships and accommodation are an offer that not every employer can make, even with a higher entrance threshold.

The salary proposal for applicants to Ozon is 2–2.5 times higher than the same offers from other delivery services - WB, Yandex Market and Lamoda - which, as experts believe, marketing move, aimed at slowing down the growth of competitors.

Announcements about work in the Sverdlovsk Ozon distribution center can be found even in public regions: in the Kurgan, Chelyabinsk regions, in the Perm Territory.

The distribution center itself is a couple of kilometers from the airport, and in cloudy weather its blue pink walls can be seen from afar-simply because this is the only bright spot in the entire bleak district.

Sverdlovsk distribution center is the main logistic node of the company in the region. Hence the parcels diverge through the districts, and also go to the neighboring Kurgan and Tyumen regions. That is why the strike of drivers that began on Sunday could turn into a great trouble not only for the Sverdlovsk region, but for the entire Urals.

Spatial lag

A long metal fence, prickly wire, checkpoint, as at border crossings, and huge almost deserted working spaces amaze with their scope and, as practice later showed, make communication between employees difficult.

This is expressed at least in the fact that only a few people from among the guards admitted that they had heard about the strikes of drivers, but they were not at all aware of its reasons and the demands put forward. The employees of the warehouse also reacted to my questions and the perimeter -

The movers, political correctly called here “loading operators”, were not aware of the strikes that happened a day earlier with drivers.

I had the feeling that the conversation about the strike causes these employees bewilderment, sometimes turning into a dumb.

One of the movers, a young man in a black tracksuit and baseball cap, turned out to be more talkative. He emerged from the door of the checkpoint sharply, even nervously. He moved towards the parking lot. In his hands there were two bags with things. Throwing the bags into the trunk as black as a suit, the “spot”, the young man threw up his fist with a protruded middle finger towards the warehouses. Then he lit a cigarette and was already reaching for the driver's door.

It soon became clear: the young man’s name is Denis, on this day he stopped labor relations with the company.

- Friends, can I lighter? - I did not find the option better to tie a conversation.

- On, hold ...

- Did you work out?

- Yes, a pipets, I was fired!

- And for what?

- For business. A week at work did not appear ... Bukhau. My childhood friend died, well, here we are with his brother ...

- Regret. Did you work for a long time?

- Almost two years, immediately as he came from the army. Fuck knows what to do now.

- And how was the salary? - by chance I asked the interlocutor.

- Well, when. If it worked well, then 60–70. If you jammed or when my hands are crookedly, then it’s just 60. But I only had only two or three times for all the time. What purpose are you interested in? Do you want to get a job too?

Upon learning of the purpose of my visit, Denis shrugged and said that he personally did not know anything about the strike of drivers:

- I do not know what truckers are there for the truckers or who is rallying there. But if I have a salary of 60 thousand, then they have 100-120. For such grandmothers, it is a sin not to work.

And now you want, I will drive you? When I came for the documents, they tell me that they will raise a salary in a warehouse from seventy to ninety. Only I did not understand: is it already or only from August? Although I am now ... I don't care for sure now. But the launch, I think, will also be tightened.

Denis left, but then several employees went to a smoke break. As Galina said (the name changed), an athletically built tall woman of 45–48 years old, despite the high salaries, the company still saves a turnover.

- Here they constantly gain people, a lot, a lot. If you get a job, then everything will be fine - but only the first three months. Then they begin to “slobish” from your salary. Well, that is, fines. We, those who are older, are sitting and not blaming. Well, true, where else do we go? And the youth begins to be indignant or simply stop going to work. Hence the shortage.

And many students are simply settled for the summer, good conditions for them are created here, and it is important that all this is spelled out in the contract. And the session, and vacation, and sick leave - everything is paid. But not everyone knows about it or does not want to know.

The man of the Caucasian appearance standing nearby, hearing our conversation, joins, barely hiding irritation. It turns out that he is an entrepreneur, that he uses the services of several delivery companies at once - and does not understand the reasons for the discontent of Ozon employees:

- I have several objects around the city, I work with everyone: with Sbering, with VB, with Yandex. In the same “savings”, the driver is both a forwarder and a mechanic, and, when necessary, a loader. But there are 4-5 thousand - a ceiling, and here guys are raised for a shift for a shift ... Horseradish knows what kind of kindergarten it is, which they rally against.

There are not enough hands

At one of the passage, the Gazelle stopped. A young man with an armful of documents got out of the car. The forwarder’s name is Oleg, according to him, he has been working in Ozon since the beginning of the year, for which he specially received category C. Oleg and explained to me, because of which the spontaneous Sunday strike began. No, not because of unbearable working conditions or low salary-with this Ozon is all right.

- Drivers did not like that the shipment for the region began late. The guys came to both 8 and 6 in the morning - and just stood waited for the shipment to begin. We were waiting for hours, and then they did not have time to take everything. Received a fine.

- A big fine?

- I don’t know, I see, I work in the city, I was not fined. But those who were from the districts - there were problems there.

- And what was all resolved?

- The men said that some people from Moscow flew in. Here is literally in the morning. Everyone gathered and apologized, said that for a month and a half the situation should be corrected. They parted on that.

I was not able to chat with the company's management directly on the spot due to the lack of authorized persons authorized to communicate with the press. Meanwhile, a communique appeared in the Yekaterinburg media about resolving a labor conflict.

The company confirmed the fact of the strike, but did not characterize it as a massive, explaining the problem of the lack of warehouse personnel.

To accelerate the work processes in the warehouse, the company promises to make even more efforts to search and attract new employees.

In addition, the OZON press service also confirmed that the leadership of the logistics department of the company held a meeting with couriers from Yekaterinburg and the Sverdlovsk region, which agreed on additional payments for the duration of normalizing the terms of shipment, as well as the creation of "direct channels of communication of the region’s couriers with the management of the company's delivery."