Black Friday Protest Sites Included An Amazon Warehouse (thecourier.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: Friday a group of protesters picketed Amazon's warehouse in Dunfermline, Scotland, alleging workers there face "up to 60 hours per week for little more than the minimum wage," according to an article in The Courier. "They also claim that new workers are tracked and monitored every minute of their working day and sacked if they fail to meet targets... Amazon has dismissed the claims, insisting that the firm values its employees and maintains a 'culture of direct dialogue' with them."

But around the world, more than 1 million people celebrated Buy Nothing Day on Friday, according to the editor in chief of Adbusters, saying their event has now spread to more than 60 countries. The Adbusters.org site suggested protesters stage zombie walks to parody the mindlessness of consumerism, and urged credit card-cutting ceremonies as well as "Whirl-Marts," where large groups of people "silently drive your shopping carts around in a long, inexplicable conga line without ever actually buying anything." The site is also sharing downloadable images which can be printed out for posters "to insert into public spaces."
One prominent retailer even closed both its physical and online stores Friday and gave all of its 12,000 employees the day off, according to USA Today. REI, which sells outdoor recreational equipment, was encouraging people to take advantage of Friday's free admission to many state parks for the second year in a row, and as many as 2.7 million people "pledged to participate" using the company's hashtag, #OptOutside.

Comments

Very good point

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a good customer of Amazon's and make multiple purchases pretty much every month, but the protesters have a good point about the working conditions (and according to that NYT piece, that apparently extends to the white collar workforce as well, except maybe for the compensation). More power to them.

60 hours a week?

[110010001000]

A lot of minimum wage people would love to get 60 hours a week of work.

Re:60 hours a week?

[sjames]

What they would really love is being able to make a decent living on 40 hours a week so they can actually spend time with their family.

Re:60 hours a week?

[AmiMoJo]

The BBC did an undercover investigation of an Amazon warehouse. They found a very fit guy, a cross country runner, and got him a job there. Amazon gave him a cart and a little hand held device that tells him where to go. The screen has a big countdown timer on it, and beeps incessantly to encourage the worker to move faster. If they don't get to the right shelf and pick the item before the countdown hits zero, they get a demerit and eventually fired.

That kind of high pressure, physically demanding job very quickly took a toll on the guy's health. If constantly being ordered around by a computer, controlling his every movement, wasn't bad enough, the time allocated to collecting each item required moving pretty quickly. Often the automatic lights would fail and he would be wondering about in the dark. Managers showed little sympathy.

A company that designs its jobs such that a physically fit person starts having health problems working there is evil and such practices should be banned. We got rid of most of that back in the 19th century.

Re:Silly America

[EvilSS]

Silly America. One day they'll learn

Friday a group of protesters picketed Amazon's warehouse in Dunfermline, Scotland

Re:Bullshit

[ShanghaiBill]

They did this scam last year too

The point was to give their workers the day off, which they did, so I don't see how it is a "scam".

... and it increased their online sales by a large amount due to the free publicity.

Good. They deserve it. Maybe this will serve as an example for others that treating workers well can be good business.

Re:Hey guess what, low skill jobs suck

[Ol Olsoc]

Walmart pays poorly because the jobs it hires people for are mostly unskilled labor. Training consists of "take this, put it there". The alternative to "subsidizing Walmart" is that they get nothing from Walmart and everything from the government. Which is cheaper?

Now just between you and me, there is money to be made at Walmart. And like it or not, the higher paid positions are not exactly rocket science either.

As for your interesting "what the market will bear" remark, it should be cheaper in the end to have WalMart pay a wage that allows it's employees to survive without government assistance. That's simple efficiency. You can't have it both ways of wanting government subsidies because cheap, while banging a free market drum.

Raising the minimum wage is just shifting the burden of welfare funding from the public to Walmart, which will have to raise prices to compensate.

What the holy baby jeebuz in a pup tent? If a person is working and getting paid, and living off it - it isn't welfare.

And dear Coward, if Walmart can't pay a wage that allows it's employees to not have to take money from the government, perhaps it is using a flawed business model, and should do what the market does to failed business models. Puts them out of business.

As their entire business model is "sell stuff cheap to poor people", you are risking killing one of the most successful businesses ever in order to achieve your social goals. And, at the end, who gets screwed? The poor who shop at Walmart.

Sounds awesome. Make everyone poor as possible so they can shop at Walmart.