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Gorillas strike in Berlin: terminated without notice
Photo: Maja Hitij / Getty Images
The ten-minute delivery service Gorillas has been in conflict with some of its Berlin bike couriers for months.
In addition to wildcat strikes and protests, the employees demonstrated, among other things, with blockades in front of warehouses for better working conditions and salaries.
The company is now apparently responding to the ongoing labor dispute with layoffs.
According to SPIEGEL information, more than a dozen drivers of the start-up recently received dismissals without notice.
The Gorillas Worker's Collective, a group of employees who recently saw themselves as the mouthpiece of the bicycle couriers, spoke on Twitter of three warehouses in Kreuzberg, Mitte and Tempelhof, where practically the entire workforce had been fired.
Reason for termination »illegal strikes«?
Two-page termination letters that SPIEGEL has received show how urgently the delivery service is in a hurry with its now former employees. "We hereby terminate the existing employment relationship with you extraordinarily for an important reason without notice," it says. The company does not explain what the important reason is. In some cases the names of employees were even misspelled.
Anyone who speaks to Berlin drivers learns of conversations that explain the brief letters. Several people were told on the phone that the "illegal strikes" were the reason for the termination. The company itself confirms this statement: Unannounced and non-union strikes are "legally inadmissible," says a spokesman. After careful consideration, they see themselves forced to enforce the legal framework. "This means that we end the employment relationship with those employees who actively participated in the unauthorized strikes and blockades, who hindered the company with their behavior and thus endangered their colleagues."
Another demonstration is planned for Wednesday in the capital. Employees want to protest against the layoffs "with pans, whistles and drums" in front of the Gorillas headquarters.
Escalation in the industrial dispute
The wave of layoffs is escalating for the delivery start-up. In an interview with the FAZ, Gorillas boss Kağan Sümer recently presented himself as a down-to-earth entrepreneur.
His employees are mostly satisfied, said Sümer, and they are treated better than the competition.
"We don't exploit anyone."
As recently as July, the Gorillas founder had made a promise to striking employees: "I would never fire someone because they were on strike," said Sumer.
"I like that you fight for your rights." Internally, the boss adopted a different tone.
In a leaked Slack message that made the rounds on social media in the past few days, Sümer writes: "We had to fire one of our drivers ... Apparently he was organizing himself."
