Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has been tasked with verifying compliance with the rights of employees at the Wildberries market after they threatened to go on strike across Russia on March 15 over the new system of fines. In some cities, Wildberries pick-up points (POIs) were already closed on March 14. In Moscow, the owners of the pick-up point stormed the company’s offices, demanding a meeting with management. RTVI has collected what is known about the situation.
What are the dissatisfactions of the owners of the emission points
By data Baza telegram channel, March 3, Wildberries management made changes to the offer for pick-up point owners. Under the new terms, contractors are responsible for the full cost of goods that buyers return to the warehouse due to marriage or substitution.
At the same time, there is no guarantee that such a product will be removed from sale and will not reach a new customer, the channel writes.
A Baza source at one of the warehouses said food and household chemicals are subject to cancellation due to the wedding, the rest is on delivery.
According to the chain, the first write-offs of distribution outlet owners began on March 9, including for goods from the last year.
In order to avoid fines, PVZ employees are forced to wash and sew things themselves, writing Shot telegram channel.
By data Baza on March 14, Wildberries also included in the offer a fine of 100,000 rubles for spreading “inaccurate, false, misleading, inciting information.”
Strike in the regions
Wild berry pick-up points in St. PetersburgPetr Kovalev/TASS
In the afternoon of March 14, the telegram channel “@sibirmedia” informed about the strike by employees at the Wildberries pick-up point in Barnaul. According to the publication, the employees of one of the points were completely written off their wages in fines, after which they did not go to work.
The chain published photos of advertisements displayed in the windows of Barnaul’s pick-up points. They say the points are closed “until the salary is paid”.
“There are a lot of defective goods. Broken, spilled, incomplete. We used to send back and could say it was not our fault. And now we can’t argue with it, and they’re imposing it on us at a high price. I now have 30,000 for the boxes that left me in February,” complained the manager of one of the distribution points.
Customers who couldn’t get orders called police and prosecutors, accusing the striking employees of cheating, she said.
On March 14, Wildberries distribution outlets were also closed in Yekaterinburg and St. Petersburg.
“Today there was some kind of riot in the Wildberries. They’ve been calling me all day and telling me that all over town the employees at their own pick-up points are getting up and going home. That happened due to large massive deductions through no fault of the employees. They were suspended with debts of 100-200 and even 500 thousand, ” said E1.RU portal the owner of one of the partner pick-up points in Yekaterinburg.
Employees of some outlets have written resignation letters.
In St. Petersburg, notices appeared on the doors of some Wildberries distribution outlets stating that they would stop working until “our demands are met and our wages are refunded”.
Some pickup points did not operate on March 14 in Blagoveshchensk, informed portal “Amur.life”. On the door of one of the PVZs, there was an announcement stating that it was closed “for an indefinite period due to the withholding of employees’ salaries due to unjustified debts”.
In the Belgorod region, some Wildberries employees have decided to leave en masse on sick leave, said “7×7” one of the workers. According to her, the fines for a shift range from one and a half to five thousand rubles.
Storming of the Wildberries office in Moscow
In the capital, PVZ employees came to the office of Wildberries, demanding a meeting with management. By data shot telegram channel, more than 50 distribution outlet owners took part in the action. The police came to the office.
According to Shot, the employees demanded, among other things, to cancel the holdback of funds for the return of defective goods, to tighten control over the transport of goods and to record the damage on video during acceptance.
Alexander Shcherbak / TASS
One of the owners of the PVZ said RBC that employees ask Wildberries to provide “transparency of earnings and penalties”. “Now everything is happening unilaterally from Wildberries, it just doesn’t sit well with us,” the source said.
As a result, entrepreneurs wrote statements to the police and announced the closure of distribution points across Russia, reports Shot. Action organizers to wait for closing up to 7,000 pick-up points.
“Bloated with a Molefly”: Wildberries’ Position
In the press service of the market “Kommersant” declared that the information about the closure of the pick-up point and the strikes in the regions is not true. The company said “about 10-15 people with yellow Telegram strings” visited the Moscow office. They called themselves representatives of partner pick-up points, but Wildberries doubted that because visitors refused to provide their data, the press service said.
“Telegram channels have made a molehill of a molehill and presented it as a ‘rebellion’ or ‘assault’ of partners, but they’re only 0.1% of their total,” Wildberries added.
The company called the offering’s innovations “additional protection for our sellers against substitution” of goods.
“Unfortunately, some unscrupulous buyers or managers of order points can replace goods, for example, with cheap analogues or goods without labeling. To prevent this from happening, those in charge of the issuing points must check them when returning the goods”, explain “Rise” in the press service of Wildberries.
The public prosecutor’s office ordered an investigation
In the context of the scandal, the Prosecutor General’s Office instructed the Moscow Region Prosecutor’s Office to verify compliance with the labor rights of Wildberries employees. This includes illegally withholding funds from their salaries, informed county press office.
Prosecutors will legally assess the order in which employees are hired, how they are paid and how the company adopts fine rules.
