Gorillas bosses won't contest works council election

In recent weeks, Gorillas employees have been arguing with their management on social networks, still protesting against the working conditions at the start-up. Now the general manager for Germany is speaking out.

Gorillas does not want to take action against the election of the election board of its employees, as General Manager for Germany Alexander Brunst explains to Gründerszene: "We will not contest the election, however, because we always seek collaborative approaches to solutions with our riders," says Brunst. He also said they are "in exchange with the committee for the works council elections" to work together on solutions for the criticism of the employees.

At the beginning of the month, the Berlin Gorillas employees elected an election committee, which will organize the works council elections in a second step. Not all employees were able to vote, as there was an exclusion list of names that, according to the organizers, probably held personnel responsibility. By law, managers are also excluded from the works council. Gorillas itself held out against this: As Brunst describes in an interview with Gründerszene, there was, for example, an intern on the list who had access to Gorillas' headquarters, but who "should not be considered part of the management."

Gorillas employees criticize, for example, the six-month probationary period during which terminations can be made. Contracts at Gorillas are usually only for one year and many of the couriers do not work for the company for long because of the heavy workload. Brunst explains that this probationary period is "a legal standard".

Employees also criticized the working conditions, such as the lack of winter clothing in sub-zero temperatures and, currently, the lack of air conditioning in the warehouses. Brunst said that in "70 percent of our warehouses we now have air conditioning and in the remaining ones we are in the process of retrofitting it." His reasoning comes as a surprise: "The fact that such a great heat is now coming as early as June is something we could not have expected... unfortunately."

On Twitter, the Gorillas Workers Collective, an anonymous association of couriers, shared the information that department stores in both Hamburg and Berlin are operating without air conditioning when it is over 30 degrees.