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Lidl are a big employer and I'm sure they're not perfect: I don't like the "others are worse" metric for arguing but unfortunately Lidl are consistently one of the better chains so it's hard to buy this.

It's also true that Amazon is consistently the worst employer in all areas including their AWS staff, where they are worried about (and I quote) "Burning through all competent human capital"[0] in certain parts of the world.

With those two factors (Lidl being above the baseline, amazon being below): your comment seems like FUD.

[0]: https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-turnover-wo...

> your comment seems like FUD

And your comment reads as though 'AWS is worse' is a defense of Lidl. It should be possible to do right by your employees, not to see who can get away with the most harm without being outright liable.

'Little' things like asking your female employees that are on their period to wear colored headbands to be allowed toilet privileges or employees committing suicide due to work pressure does not fall in 'not perfect', that's outright hostile.

See provided reference.

AWS is worse is absolutely a defence of Lidl.

The "problem" here is that it's being positioned as a dichotomy between the status quo (Amazon) and an entrant (Lidl) and your claims that Lidl are "bad and I won't use them" implies that you would use Amazon. Since that's what is in the topic.

Not saying they're perfect, as mentioned, all I know is that they're a big employer and externally: they pay better than the competition and have a much higher employee satisfaction rating (where I can see it) than for instance ASDA, Walmart or Swedish chains like Coop and Netto.

I won't use Amazon either. The title references this as an AWS competitor and if you read my comment carefully you would probably realize that I did not exactly glorify them, rather the opposite.

Well you seem to desire attacking Lidl no matter the facts or experiences, so don't be surprised at other's reactions.

Lidl is generally cheap store (there are exceptions when they provide above above-average quality for little price), but where I come from, people are generally happy to work there and they sure pay above average within business.

Well you seem to desire attacking Lidl no matter the facts or experiences, so don't be surprised at other's reactions.

Lidl is generally cheap store (but there are exceptions when they provide above above-average q, but where I come from, people are generally happy to work there and they sure pay above average within business.

At least in the UK they are well known to pay well above average in the retail industry.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59306232

That was mostly because they couldn't recruit staff, the free market at work. But when faced with the option to squeeze people and push them beyond human endurance Lidl will do it every time. Employees have killed themselves because of the work pressure there.

Sounds like the right company to take on Amazon.

> But when faced with the option to squeeze people and push them beyond human endurance Lidl will do it every time.

Do you really think Lidl will be able to mistreat the IT stuff, given the current market shortage in Germany?

I seem to remember one person in France (?) but it could be Renault or some other French company, so I might remember wrongly. Are there others?

[Edit] After some googling, yes there was one in France for Lidl, and three for Renault, and three for France Télécom (and more). Is it that other countries do not relate suicides to work (but they exist) or is there something special about France?

(never worked for Lidl, or in France and only shop at Lidl if needed, I don't like their products very much)

Two confirmed cases, and one case where they encouraged employees to kill themselves (I'm not kidding):

https://www.francebleu.fr/infos/societe/lidl-vise-par-une-qu... (in French)

"Blackmail, pressure, favouritism, bullying, sequestration in an office, incitement to suicide and intimidation: the accusations made are edifying, the testimonies surprising. The management of another time."

Thanks! :-(

Same in Romania, biggest salaries in the industry.

Whereas I hear the pay at the Amazon fulfillment centers is really good???!

Yes, that must be why Amazon works hard to ensure their employees don't unionize.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/16/technology/amazon-unions-...

Who needs collective bargaining power if the pay is so great.

GP is being sarcastic.

Then GP should learn to use the /s tag.

The multiple '???!' should be enough of a hint (as well as the obvious context of contradicting reality)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe%27s_law

Witness the number of people that 'didn't get it' and realize that I am not at all surprised that some people would write something like that and mean it, superfluous punctuation or not.

Adding /s would still leave plenty people to take it serious. We don't have to cater to the 100%.

Fair enough, but that is the convention.

Yeah I was also a bit confused about that, like few months ago 2 employee had to die during a storm just because Jeff Pesos couldn't afford to keep a fulfillment center closed and people still work at AWS without conscience issues?

No idea what you are talking about. Here in Germany Corporate Lidl is paying fair, retail management on entry level is being paid way above average and even the retail employees are paid above competition (on the same level of Aldi).

Those traditional companies will never be able to compete with absurd FAANG salaries (that are obscene in my opinion anyway, but that is not the topic) due to the nature of the business. If this thing scales, however, then salaries could be higher.

Finally, I am living in Germany, I have worked for German companies. Many of us dont like the US, we dont like those American services, too. If there was a German alternative, even with a premium, we would pay that. It has to be competetive in functionality, but not necassarily in price.

Yes! Something like this would be very suited for public sector work.

Really? This is contrary to what I've heard from friends who've worked at Lidl. Admittedly my sample size is just 3 and all local to Finland, but over here Lidl seems to be regarded as a good employer, and when you factor in the various bonuses, they pay well above market rate.

don't mind him, he is on some personal vendetta against that company, other comments here show that clearly

> he is on some personal vendetta against that company

I'm on a personal vendetta against any company that abuses its employees. Lidl, Amazon, and others besides, consider me an 'equal opportunity employer' when it comes to abusive employers.

Also, your comment is well outside the HN guidelines.

Over here in Romania Lidl pays some of the best salaries in the retail market, the worst are the likes of Carrefour, Cora and I think Auchan, too. They also have an IT division in here, not sure what their relative pay is.

A close friend of mine works for the local Lidl division, she is part of the team that does internal communication and as such she has been directly involved in "marketing" compensation-related stuff and related perks to the company's employees and such. To me it does seem that Lidl, the company, tries to treat its employees as humanly as possible, which is saying something when it comes to the retail market.

There is a major difference between how they treat 'corporate' employees vs how they treat store workers.

The internal communication I was mentioning about was/is meant at store workers.

> I think they'll have a hard time finding people to staff that, Lidl has a long history of underpaying and abusing their personnel

I don't know about the personnel abuse, but here in the UK Lidl employees are one of the better paid employees as far as groceries stores go.

EDIT: maybe I was thinking of Aldi, who, after a quick search, seems to pay significantly more than Lidl.

You are correct. Lidl pays their staff more than any other UK supermarket. But this might not be the case in other countries, plus doesn't mean they don't abuse their staff in other ways.

Source: friend who was a market researcher for Tesco

> I think they'll have a hard time finding people to staff that, Lidl has a long history of underpaying and abusing their personn

Not sure what branch you are refering to, but that's definitely not the case with their IT department. Their pay and benefits are well above market rate.

Pay is ok, working hours are not ok. In 2019 I was offered a 42h contract (Überstunden abgeholten) which I of course declined. Almost 0 mobile working possibilities back then. That changed with Corona, but it tells a good picture imo.

They have 150 employees. Like Amazon there's likely a difference how people at the frontline vs backend IT systems are treated.

AWS has 40k employees, so that's going to be interesting.

Funny you say that and pick up Amazon as an example. Lidl is known for not treating retail workers the best, but still orders of magnitude better than Amazon treats their retail workers.

That being said, both are irrelevant, since it won't be the first company that treats retails workers like shit, while handling the IT workers like spoiled rock stars.

Amazon is referenced in the title...

> Lidl has a long history of underpaying and abusing their personnel

So does Amazon?

Underpayment and abuse might turn out to be the key to success. /s

Is there any evidence for that other than the scandal they had a decade or so ago? Maybe I missed it.

'The scandal'?

They've had a whole series of scandals, it is one of the worst employers in Europe and some of the stuff they do is just incredible. Some of them are more pressworthy than others but Lidl never really stopped.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lidl#Working_conditions_and_la...

Sorry, but those are all “accusations” or “claims”, and almost all refer to misconduct of management in one particular warehouse or shop. Not comparable to the spying scandal from a decade ago.

It's the same company.

Of course misconduct of management would happen 'in one particular warehouse or shop', where else would it happen? Lidl consists of corporate, warehouses and shops. Most opportunities for abuse will be present in the latter two.

As for the spying scandal: the same board that condoned that still runs the company today, they conveniently scape-goated one individual and threw him under the bus but just like other scandals involving multi-nationals the real perps typically stay out of the firing line.

Lidl paid a 1.5 million euro fine, which is a pittance and their exec a nice golden parachute, who by the way now has a nice little thing going as a high flying consultant:

https://de.linkedin.com/in/frankmichaelmros

> I think they'll have a hard time finding people to staff that, Lidl has a long history of underpaying and abusing their personnel

Their store staff yes indeed, but they won't be able to get away with that for IT staff. The situation is similar to Amazon... those who are essentially disposable cogs get treated as such as far as the law allows (and in some cases even worse), the ones who can't be replaced get paid really well.

AWS is a direct competitor in retail market it's common for big companies not to chose AWS if they are in same business, with Microsoft Azure it's a bit different story as they are the IT company not like Amazon.

There's no comparison to the modern slavery happening at Amazon or Walmart.

"underpaying and abusing their personnel"

Amazon has the same...