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Amazon Employee Explains the Poor Working Conditions of An Amazon Warehouse
Earlier this week, James Bloodworth, a former UK Amazon employee that worked undercover in the "fulfillment center" for six-months, released a book detailing the mistreatment of warehouse employees at the commerce company. He described the work culture as a prison after discovering that Amazon warehouse staff were peeing in bottles to avoid taking too many breaks. Since the report first broke, many Amazon employees have come out to share their thoughts on the working conditions, including one Reddit user who claims that "the post is pretty spot on": They don't monitor bathroom breaks, but [your] individual rate (or production goal) [doesn't] account for bathroom breaks, or... let's say there is a problem like you need [two] of something and there's only one left, well you have to put on your "andon"... wait for someone to come "fix" for you, all the while your rate is dropping. The [two] most common reasons [people] get fired are not hitting rate, and attendance. They don't really try to help you hit rate, they just fire and replace.
My first week there [two] [people] collapsed from dehydration. It's so [commonplace] to see someone collapse that nobody is even shocked anymore. You'll just hear a manager complain that he has to do some report now, while a couple of new [people] try to help the guy (veterans won't risk helping [because] it drips rate). No sitting allowed, and there's nowhere to sit anywhere except the break rooms. Before the robots (they call them kivas) pickers would regularly walk 10-15 miles a day, now it's just stand for 10-12 hours a day. [People] complain about the heat all the time but we just get told 80 degrees (Fahrenheit obviously) is a safe working temp. [Sometimes] they will pull out a thermometer, but even when it hits 85 they just say it's fine. There's been deaths, at least one in my building... Amazon likes to keep it all hush hush. Heard about others, you can find the stories if you search for it, but Amazon does a good job burying it... Amazon has denied the allegations, saying: "Amazon ensures all of its associates have easy access to toilet facilities which are just a short walk from where they are working. Amazon provides a safe and positive workplace for thousands of people across the UK with competitive pay and benefits from day one. We have not been provided with confirmation that the people who completed the survey worked at Amazon and we don't recognize these allegations as an accurate portrayal of activities in our buildings."
My first week there [two] [people] collapsed from dehydration. It's so [commonplace] to see someone collapse that nobody is even shocked anymore. You'll just hear a manager complain that he has to do some report now, while a couple of new [people] try to help the guy (veterans won't risk helping [because] it drips rate). No sitting allowed, and there's nowhere to sit anywhere except the break rooms. Before the robots (they call them kivas) pickers would regularly walk 10-15 miles a day, now it's just stand for 10-12 hours a day. [People] complain about the heat all the time but we just get told 80 degrees (Fahrenheit obviously) is a safe working temp. [Sometimes] they will pull out a thermometer, but even when it hits 85 they just say it's fine. There's been deaths, at least one in my building... Amazon likes to keep it all hush hush. Heard about others, you can find the stories if you search for it, but Amazon does a good job burying it... Amazon has denied the allegations, saying: "Amazon ensures all of its associates have easy access to toilet facilities which are just a short walk from where they are working. Amazon provides a safe and positive workplace for thousands of people across the UK with competitive pay and benefits from day one. We have not been provided with confirmation that the people who completed the survey worked at Amazon and we don't recognize these allegations as an accurate portrayal of activities in our buildings."
are people that lazy to find another job?
Most likely there are people who see the job very differently from the author. For everyone paid less or fired for being slow, there is someone else willing to hustle, and getting paid more.
Caption Obvious makes his predictions for Amazon:
(1) Improve working conditions? No.
(2) Improve screening of new hires? Yes.
(3) PROFIT!
Bibliophile that I am, I will NOT ever buy another book from Amazon. I reached that conclusion more than 15 years ago, and I've resisted every temptation since then. Amazon is just Walmart on steroids--and I never shop at Walmart.
How long until they starve me into submission?
Anyway, remember the creed of the corporate cancers that have killed capitalism and communism and that are now working (AKA bribing and lying and scheming) to kill the last vestiges of socialism, too:
"There is no gawd but profit, and Amazon is gawd's #1 prophet!"
That's calling it on market cap in relation to the current proprietor, but on profit alone it should be Apple. Top 10 for gross profit (and I do mean gross) includes a bunch of gigantic casinos pretending to be banks.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
Slashdot Poster Explains the Poor Working Conditions of An Amazon Warehouse
It's a warehouse.
Right, because it's as easy as walking into any random office building and saying, "I want a job, give me one!" and they say, "Yes, sir/ma'am! Right this way, we'll get the paperwork started immediately!" Or if you're living paycheck to paycheck, taking even a single day off to go to an interview at another place can send your precarious finances off the cliff.
Consider yourself very fortunate if you have the luxury of being able to take your time in finding a new job. There are a lot of people out there who are not.
Eight years is too long.
You were doing it right, but the trick is that after you acquire new skills and experience, you change employers and get the money.
Most employers will always remember what you made when you started there. It's one of the main reasons to job hop somewhat regularly. At some level they are always calculating the % of your initial pay that a raise represents. You want to get good money when you come in the door, if you don't, you WILL need to job hop.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What? Do you think that journalists just sit around until stories fall in their lap? Of course you have to have an idea, investigate it, write about it, and finally promote your work so you can get paid. In what alternative way do you suggest journalists operate?
so how exactly are there "veterans" of the workplace there?
are people that lazy to find another job?
If you haven't been given an education or your IQ prevents you from getting an adequate education then these people are usually stuck with this sort of work.
This is performance based workplace at it finest, where the company is managed by numbers on spreadsheets. The workers are just numbers (expenses really) and the focus is on getting the most productivity out of these expenses. Managers are rewarded on the performance they can extract leading to this sort of treatment.
Why do you think so much of the world hates us?
Not for the reason you've given.
Usually they hate you because your government overthrew theirs, and made their lives even more miserable, or your military dropped bombs on their house and killed their children.
Those of us who live in places not being bombed by Americans don't hate you, because we have met some of you and you're usually really nice people.
We do look at your weird, corrupt, childishly petulant government however and hope we never do anything to piss them off.
are people that lazy to find another job?
Ah, spoken like a RWNJ. It is amazing to see right-wingers constantly label people who work grueling hours -- probably much tougher work conditions than they have ever endured -- as "lazy".
Here is a hint buttercup:
The [two] most common reasons [people] get fired are not hitting rate, and attendance
It is tough to go out looking for another job when any time away from work is liable to get you fired from your present one. This is not infrequently a deliberate strategy of the employer.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
are people that lazy to find another job?
Most likely there are people who see the job very differently from the author. For everyone paid less or fired for being slow, there is someone else willing to hustle, and getting paid more.
Because in Libertarian World there are no bad working conditions, only lazy employees who are not sufficiently grateful to the 'job creators' for giving them 'opportunity'. Dead end job? No such thing!
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
Well, taking a day off to go to job interviews might mean not eating for the next month... so how free are they to move around, really. Last time I checked, human beings needed to eat more than once a month.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Most likely there are people who see the job very differently from the author. For everyone paid less or fired for being slow, there is someone else willing to hustle, and getting paid more.
Exactly. Just like for every child laborer in the 1800s that complained about needing to go to "school", there was another hard worker willing to risk his tiny, efficient fingers in the machines!
Then the frackin labor laws ruined everything! Now where's my monacle?
Don't like it, form a union, go on strike and shut down the fulfilment centre until conditions change. Don't forget, collect evidence and get your union to sue the crap out of Amazon, fight, fight, fight, fuck em! Don't beg for nothing, you are a citizen, fight for your rights, to a decent job and a decent wage or choose to be fucked up the arse by your employer and allow your cowardice to pass the privilege onto future generations. It boils down to this, you simply have no other choice than to fight, else conditions and wages will just get worse and worse and worse.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
In other words: He had a vested interest in the stories he chose, not all the stories he heard.
Warehouses used to be a not bad job for someone without much education or skills, at least according to the people I've known that worked in them. Nothing fantastic but not shitty like this is described.
The problem is freaking metrics. I hate them!
Call centers are horrible too ans run by them. Literally if you give yourself a break more than 3 seconds the team leader RUNS right behind you and freaks out and points to a watch. It was crazy.
THey hurt Dell, GE, and others. I have been let go from a job over them and it was rediculious as it was not a call center or warehouse. It was an MBA from a customer who only saw the numbers in one area that is measurable. GE and Dell came up with firing 15% every year. As a result no one can retire as you are eventually fired. As a result Dell lost alot of good people and many refuse to work under these conditions.
You always need to be careful with them. They ruined product quality and employee morale.
http://saveie6.com/
Technically, all businesses are managed by spreadsheets.
In my experience, problems occur when an arse-licking manager thinks that replacing anyone who doesn't fit 'the numbers', will improve the numbers. That may work in labour-intensive jobs but in the back-office, faulty machines don't get replaced and productivity continues to plummet.
Union demarcation of the 1970s meant a lot of lost productivity waiting for someone to do their job but it helped misfits find a niche skill/task in the organisation. Now that everyone needs to be a extroverted, multi-skilled team-player, the number of misfits is a lot higher but businesses just fire and replace.
Why aren't employees calling government Health and Safety?
There's been deaths ...
How did the government fail to investigate this?
Why wasn't some manager arrested for not ensuring first aid is given?
> Because in Libertarian World
Yes, but in a Libertarian World, nobody would be forced to take a *specific* job in order to keep their home, as it done in the UK. People are forced into job with benefit sanctions, and that (intentionally) enables the exploitation of workers.
That being said, the case is clearly more complicated, because there are both happy and unhappy workers at Amazon. They also pay significantly above national average, which would indicate that it is not a "minimum wage dead end job". Maybe they pay more because the conditions are so terrible, and that is cheaper than fixing the conditions? It is worth asking those questions, and whether laws (such as the duty of care towards employees) were broken.