Online retailer Amazon has been hit by renewed industrial action in two of its distribution centres in Germany. Hundreds of workers in Leipzig and Bad Hersfeld staged an all-day strike on Thursday. The same centres had seen strikes last summer and in the run-up to Christmas.

Verdi, the German services union which organised the strike, wants the US company to recognise its employees as retail rather than logistics workers and comply with standard wage agreements in Germany. Mail order businesses are supposed to pay workers between €11.47 and €11.94 an hour, at least €1 more than Amazon's German workers earn.

Union representative Jörg Lauenroth-Mago said that the online retailer was displaying "a lack of respect for the excellent work that Amazon employees deliver every day". He said he expected around 40% of the Leipzig workforce to take part in industrial action today, and that further centres in the rest of Germany would follow Leipzig and Bad Hersfeld's lead over the course of the year.

Earlier this month, Amazon had rejected a union offer to enter tariff negotiations. In a statement, it said that only a small number of employees were taking part in the protests and that the centre's turnover rate wouldn't be affected. The company claims that its employees are rewarded by flexible rewards such as shares or bonuses, which couldn't be reflected in a tariff agreement.