On March 15, dozens of Blueberry distribution points stopped working in the Urals and in Irkutsk, Bratsk and Angarsk, in Chita, in the Trans-Baikal Territory and Buryatia, in Vladivostok and Blagoveshchensk. The action was organized by Wildberries partners all over Russia in the general MEGA Riot chat, which brought together more than 11,000 employees at the marketplace pickup point. On March 14, owners of distribution points in Moscow reportedly began a strike.
Why are PVZs on strike?
With the help of the strike, PVZ employees are protesting the system of fines introduced by the Wildberry management. The new rules suggest that if the buyer returns the item due to marriage or there is a wrong item in the package, the employees of the outlets will be withheld the entire cost of the item. Forbes, the company announced the innovation as a result of an internal study of algorithms, for which the PVZ employee is responsible in 98% of cases.
“We were shocked by what we heard,” PVZ employees told the broadcast. “The goods can be stolen or exchanged in the warehouse, from the carrier, in the sorting center, anywhere, we sincerely do not understand why we overdo it.”
At the same time, the decision regarding the guilt of the employee cannot be appealed and if there is a penalty debt, the employees will not be able to withdraw their money from the system. According to the new rules, the deletion process began on March 9.
Participants in the strike demand that the market cancel all debts for marriage and substitution, provide the PVZ with an opportunity to appeal debts and deductions, as well as return the fine for marriage and substitution to the previous level – 25%.
“We have a condition not to violate labor relations,” Svetlana Yuzhakova, manager of the goods distribution point in Yekaterinburg, told RBC. An employee of a collection point in the Smolensk region told the publication that distribution points are not closed, they only temporarily stop ordering.
“This is because the company has illegally withheld a portion of its employees’ wages due to unproven and unreasonable substitutes and defective goods. “This is not a strike, the workers are fulfilling their labor duties according to the employment contract,” he said.
The Mash Telegram channel quotes an employee who said that after deducting wage penalties, nothing is left. “But it’s useless to prove anything – most of them never saw the authorities, they only communicated by correspondence,” the message says.
How did the March 15 strike go?
In cities throughout Russia, the strike was supported by the owners of special collection points, working with Wildberries on a franchise basis. According to the e1.ru portal, at least three distribution points took part in the action in Yekaterinburg. In Vladivostok, sales points have not been opened on Ladygina, Cheremukhovaya, Tukhachevsky streets and Partizansky Prospekt. 25 distribution points do not work in Irkutsk. Kommersant reported that there are about 20 more in other cities of the Irkutsk region – Angarsk, Bratsk and Ust-Ilimsk.
In addition, several collection points in Cheetah, Buryatia and the Trans-Baikal Territory participated in the strike – more than 20 points in each region.
There were far fewer striking pick-up points in central Russia, including Moscow. The scorers told the Shot Telegram channel that in the event of a strike, they would have to pay a large fine for delay.
“This is a branded outlet. We are a direct point. For the postponement of our point in one day – a fine of one hundred thousand. If they’re IPEs that don’t open, it’s not that scary,” one of the PVZ employees told Shot.
Protest organizers believe the strike failed because they intimidate people. Kommersant also writes that Wildberry denied information about the strike. Beware of Moscow, the company said today that 15 collection points across the country are down for various reasons.
Wildberry responds to strikers
According to the publication Rise, referring to the press service of the market, the wild berries distribution point refused to comply with the requirements of the owners.
“Salaries are paid daily, there are no restrictions and never have been. Implementation of the remaining points will lead to a significant reduction in the level of customer service,” Wildberry representatives say.
They also reported that they closed many outlets due to “threats against the company” and started exporting goods from them to the marketplace and seller-entrepreneurs.
“As we warned yesterday, cooperation with “partners” who choose uncivilized forms of dialogue, threaten company representatives and try to disrupt the work of the office will be suspended for security reasons,” Wildberry said.
Telegram channel “Attention, Moscow” reported that on the order of the company to confiscate all goods, couriers arrived at collection points near Moscow. The owner of the pickup point in Noginsk did not allow them to pick up the goods and forbade his employees to help the couriers. The woman also promised to call the police, and then the couriers had to leave. The owner is sure that the company made such a decision after participating in the strike. Telegram channel writes that the same thing happened at the collection point in Khimki.
In response, the Baza edition reported that all employees participating in the strike would be fired and the accounts of PVZ holders would be blocked within an hour for violating one of the proposal’s prohibitions on criticism of the company. movements.
“Employees leave very quickly. Marketplace workers in Kemerovo were warned that their account would be blocked within an hour, their GPC contracts were terminated, ”the newspaper reports.
Legislative changes
Against the background of the strike, a meeting was held in the State Duma on the morning of March 15, to which representatives of the order posts and Wildberrys were invited.
“Unfortunately, the company did not come to the meeting,” Dmitry Gusev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Control Committee, told RBC.
According to the news of Baza channel, company officials stopped answering calls half an hour before the scheduled meeting time. At the same time, “literally a minute” before the meeting began, they nevertheless contacted the lawmakers and said that they were not ready to attend the meeting. As a result, the owners of distribution points, representatives of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and members of the State Duma Control Committee and the Committee for the Protection of Competition participated.
The meeting ended with lawmakers vowing to put up for discussion a bill that would ban companies from unilaterally changing the terms of their contracts. Gusev said Wildberry representatives are still waiting for a separate discussion in the State Duma.
According to the deputy, another meeting should be held on March 21 at the Federal Antimonopoly Service regarding the fact of the strike. He also pointed out that the State Duma intends to become a “Wildberries union”, since there is no such association of market workers.
“You have to understand that these people don’t make a lot of money. As they told us at the meeting – 20-30 thousand rubles, this is not so hot even by regional standards. And these people may lose their source of income,” he said.
Telegram channel Shot reports that on the second attempt, lawmakers managed to hold a meeting with representatives of Wildberry. All requests from collection point owners have been forwarded to them and ordered to respond to each point by 17 March.
Earlier, the prosecutor’s office of the Moscow Region launched an investigation into whether the rights of PVZ employees were respected on the basis of reports of “illegal deductions of funds from their wages.” Wildberry is the largest online retailer in Russia. The company has 33 thousand distribution points, of which 13,8 thousand are partners.