Accompanied by demonstrations, the US online company Amazon has opened a new location in the new East Side Tower on Warschauer Strasse.
There, the approximately 2,500 Berlin office workers of the group are to move in, which have so far been distributed across various locations in the city, as Amazon announced. Further employees will be added in the coming years. There was space for around 3,000 of them, it said.
The more than 140 meter high East Side Tower was only opened a few weeks ago. According to the information, Amazon will move into 33 of the 35 floors. The company focuses its research and development department in Germany at the new location.
The so -called Kiezlab, a free meeting place for local clubs and initiatives from the neighborhood, also moves into the premises of Amazon. It is operated by the non -profit organization “Young tinkerers: inside”.
Berlin’s ruling mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) also came to the opening. “This is a commitment to the Berlin location that is happy,” he said. In the morning, several dozen people demonstrated in front of the high-rise. They fear Amazon’s increasing influence on infrastructure and real estate markets in the capital. The demonstrators symbolically named Warschauer Straße in “Amazon Straße”.
Wegner defended the company: In a growing city, people need work areas, he emphasized. “We will continue to develop Berlin in this direction because we want Berlin to be an economic -friendly city.”
Criticism also came from the Verdi union. “The Amazon Tower may shine in the Berlin sun, if it seems-that cannot outshine the fact that the group refuses to have good and reliable working conditions in the form of a collective agreement,” said Silke Zimmer from the Verdi federal executive board. She asked Wegner to work on Amazon to recognize collective agreements and to maintain employee rights.