Von Tür zu Tür im Pandemie-Modus: Auswirkungen der Covid-19-Pandemie auf die Arbeit in derPaketzustellung

The article deals with the effects of the pandemic on the work of parcel delivery. This was affected by two developments: On the one hand, the closure of shops due to the two lockdowns resulted in a strong increase in the demand of ecommerce, which led to a considerable intensification and increase in the amount of work tobe done for the employees in parcel delivery. On the other hand, the delivery process had tobe as contactless as possible. The resulting consequences and tensions for work, organization and co-determination were empirically investigated with an in-depth case study approach. The basis is formed by interviews with management and representatives of works councils, which were conducted from autumn 2020 to spring 2021. The results show that the requirement to reduce the number of contacts was implemented internally with the help of a spatial and temporal separation of work preparation. This led to moments of both relief (e.g., extremely low incidence of infection in the workplace) and strain, requiring a high degree of flexibility and willingness to compromise on the part of the employees. The delivery staff coped with the high workload by contactless handover of the parcels and using their subjective resources. New staff was recruited from other crisis-ridden sectors. For the works council, the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic turned out tobe a moment of shock in terms of labour policy, in which they initially let management have its way.