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Amazon Workers in Europe Stage 'We Are Not Robots' Protests on One of Its Busiest Shopping Days (techcrunch.com)
Some of Amazon's workers in Europe are protesting against what they call unfair work conditions, in a move meant to disrupt operations on Black Friday. From a report: They've timed the latest protest for Black Friday, one of the busiest annual shopping days online as retailers slash prices and heavily promote deals to try to spark a seasonal buying rush. In the UK, the GMB Union says it's expecting "hundreds" to attend protests timed for early morning and afternoon at Amazon warehouses in Rugeley, Milton Keynes, Warrington, Peterborough and Swansea. At the time of writing the union had not provided details of turnout so far.
Protests are also reported to be taking place in Spain, France and Italy today. Although, when asked about strikes at its facilities in these countries, Amazon claimed: "Our European Fulfilment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus on delivering for our customers. Any reports to the contrary are simply wrong." The demonstrations look intended to not only apply pressure on Amazon to accept collective bargaining but encourage users of its website to think about the wider costs involved in packing and despatching the discounted products they're trying to grab. In a statement on Wednesday announcing the Black Friday protest, Tim Roache, the GMB's general secretary, said: "The conditions our members at Amazon are working under are frankly inhuman. They are breaking bones, being knocked unconscious and being taken away in ambulances. We're standing up and saying enough is enough, these are people making Amazon its money. People with kids, homes, bills to pay -- they're not robots."
Protests are also reported to be taking place in Spain, France and Italy today. Although, when asked about strikes at its facilities in these countries, Amazon claimed: "Our European Fulfilment Network is fully operational and we continue to focus on delivering for our customers. Any reports to the contrary are simply wrong." The demonstrations look intended to not only apply pressure on Amazon to accept collective bargaining but encourage users of its website to think about the wider costs involved in packing and despatching the discounted products they're trying to grab. In a statement on Wednesday announcing the Black Friday protest, Tim Roache, the GMB's general secretary, said: "The conditions our members at Amazon are working under are frankly inhuman. They are breaking bones, being knocked unconscious and being taken away in ambulances. We're standing up and saying enough is enough, these are people making Amazon its money. People with kids, homes, bills to pay -- they're not robots."
installing more robots.
;)
Just my 2 cents
It's interesting that they compare the Amazon warehouse square footage to a nearby Tesco grocery warehouse - by the area of the building.
How many people work in each, and how many hours per day do people work there? How healthy were those employees when they started work? Amazon is pretty well-known for hiring just about anyone, including people with known health problems. Does the grocery store warehouse even hire pregnant women at all for production jobs?
Amazon warehouses are often 24/7 environments, while most grocery warehouses close for several hours per day (or reduce staff drastically overnight). That's probably also an issue.
How busy is the Tesco warehouse? Do they have a few hundred thousand different items to pick, wrap, and ship to thousands of different addresses per day, like the Amazon location, or are they like a normal grocery distribution center that sends out a few dozen trucks during a normal work day? The packaging difference alone probably doubles or triples the Amazon workforce right off the bat.
And last... it looks like the Amazon site calls an ambulance for just about anything. Does Tesco do the same, or do they just stand around and stall until they're forced to, hoping the employee will decide to wander over to the hospital after work?
Corporate greed has no boundaries.
I don't know the safety record of Amazon vs comparable companies. That would be interesting to find out.
What I DO know is that "we are not robots" is kind of a dumb thing for the union boss to say to a company considering replacing workers with robots. The union is basically saying "you'd be better off replacing us with robots". Bad choice of words.
Step 5: Cut the military's budget by 90% so that we can afford to send everyone to college. Then maybe we can all get some of those high-tech jobs this economy is supposed to be running on, instead of importing H1-B visas.
"Prediction: within 10 years, Windows will be a Linux distribution." Me, 7-6-2016
Step one: implement a truer free market by reducing barriers to employees switching jobs
1a) untether health insurance from the employer by granting universal coverage, with the current premiums going to fund national healthcare instead of for-profit companies increasing the cost of coverage
1b) increase social welfare so employees working for abusive employers feel comfortable quitting, and not fearful for starving their families
Step two: Encourage business to return to passing on profits to the employees who make the profits happen
2a) Increase taxes on corporate profits
2b) Cap executive salaries and bonuses based on a multiplier of the lowest 10% of employee salaries
2c) Tie minimum wage to employee productivity so that gains are shared by the employees that generate that productivity
Step three: Create an environment where people can get a better job
3a) Eliminate for profit higher education providers who cannot show comparable results to a state backed university
3b) Provide curriculum to all students based on science and fact, and not religion
3c) Require school board members to have degrees in education and years of actual teaching, along with an equal representation of fields e.g. if comp sci is offered, the school board must have a member in that field
I'll stop there for now.