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Inside Amazon
It is the world's biggest online business. But with questions being asked about its treatment of employees, what is it like to work at Amazon? Carole Cadwalladr lands a job in one of its giant warehouses and discovers the human cost of our lust for consumer goods.
Quite concerning - the sad part is that this is almost certainly not unique to Amazon.
Comments
If they don't like it, they should just resign. Simple.
This is nothing compared to Foxconn forcing teenagers to work for free.
Is this really a surprise for anyone?
I don't understand what's the drama here. It's a job. If you want, you can quit and find a better one. If you are not qualified enough to find a better job - that's your problem.
As others have said, it's a job and for many there are little other options. This is the price that must be paid to get you and I our goods at the price we demand and in the time we expect.
Blame the customer as much as the provider.
I'm also forced to work for free... Because I'm a intern. That isn't that bad. The worst part is that they expect you to work like a full paid employee.
Councils spend £millions to enable Amazon opening these warehouses which could alternatively be spent on creating less pressurised, insecure jobs. Maybe with companies that have less opposition to unions.
Amazon workers face 'increased risk of mental illness':
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25034598
documentary with undercover footage on iPlayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03k5kzp
Spoken like a true British worker!
There is no doubt that Amazon picking is a tough job, I know a few people who work in the one not far from Edinburgh, most like it for a variety of reasons, for others its just not for them.
Panorama made it look much worse than it is and focused of course on those who had little good to say. But perhaps this is the future for everyone in every job. Every minute accounted for, no place to hide and an expectation you work pretty damn hard for your money. Is that a shocking concept?
Granted in the UK it is for a good portion of the population who are used to not being held accountable as much as they would in this role and being able to hide behind the largely powerless unions in the UK today.
This kind of business model is the future.
Why would you else be there if you are not going to work like a full paid one? The point of internship's is to learn and do the job like any one else would just to give you the insight you need to full fill your internship.
If he is utilized as labor he should get paid as labor, though
Yet everyone wants super low prices on everything... This economy we have today is like a self-feeding implosion, like a vicious cycle of consumerism, consumer greed (what I like to call "stuff-itis"), and corporate greed. People want cheap stuff, the corporations are selling cheap stuff, quality goes out the window at the same time, trade agreements are forged, tariffs are broken down and low cost labor markets are exploited. Meanwhile here in the US, and western Europe for example, people can't find decent paying jobs anymore and manufacturing of any kind is almost extinct (the auto industry is still chugging along). So of course that the typical 21st century consumer wants cheap stuff. Does anyone see the pattern here? Now, is anyone shocked that this is going on? Don't worry, no one can stop this.
The entire economical system is falling apart, something will change one day. This system works for imaginary growth and unexisting VC, but not for natural persons vs corporate entities...
I just don't trust writing like this. Maybe it's just me but it read like someone who had already made up their mind and just needed to find some facts to validate their opinion. Yes jobs are not amusement parks. All too often I hear exaggerations from people who are just lazy and don't want to work. It's hard to tell them apart from their writings, you'd have to be there to know. That's why I'm skeptical of people who write like this.
There were several articles about working conditions in Amazon's US warehouses last year and the complaints were similar to the complaints UK workers are making. In the US Amazon staffs its warehouses primarily with temp workers so it can avoid paying benefits. Many of Amazon's US warehouses lacked air conditioning until Amazon received a bunch of negative publicity last year (and a visit from the Feds...OSHA) and agreed to install air conditioning.
from last year:
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/amazon/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917,0,6503103.story
http://articles.mcall.com/2012-06-03/business/mc-amazon-warehouse-air-conditioning-20120602_1_warehouse-workers-air-conditioning-breinigsville-warehouse
and...
@DomainBop thanks for sharing. I really hadn't heard any of this before.
You should have seen the working condition in shoes factories in Indonesia (mostly Korean owned in partner with local "official") that almost as good as slavery, producing branded sport shoes such as "R", "N", "G".
Part of the "semi slavery" blame goes to the government that promotes cheap workforce to foreign investors and set a very low minimum wages but never want to talk about maximum wage.
When I worked in a shoe factory as a warehouse supervisor back in the '90s, the benefit and wages for 50 expatriate workers are equal to the benefit and wages of 3,500 local workers.
At that time, when we protest about the condition, we are going directly to jail without trial for violating "Undang-undang Anti Subversi".
After the riot back in 1998 and the fall of Soeharto's regime, things are getting better, but the working condition and wages are not.
If you're in America, that's not legal.
Really, when did they change the laws? I remember seeing tons of unpaid intern positions when I was in college.
Unpaid intern is legal, but it's not forced. It can feel that way depending on your chosen career.
It's a race to the bottom here in the US. State government will bend over backwards to bring in low paying, low skill jobs to their state. At the same time they will look for ways to raise revenue because all of the things they gave companies to move to their state were promised without looking at the long term bottom line.
If a governor is in office for four years and brings in 100,000 low pay jobs he looks like a hero until the tax breaks and other incentives for the company that moved there run out (4-8 years) and they look for the next sucker to give them a deal.
Ok, let me correct myself. It's not legal if you're willing to challenge it. Quite frankly, they take advantage of people thinking "experience is good, worth slave labour".
So what happens when robots replace workers in fast food resturants, or when Amazon has to start paying taxes and replaces people with robots?
Foxconn said they would replace a million workers with Robots. Has not happened, probably because the Chinese government can think 2 steps ahead and knew a large swath of people unemployed because of robots might be a bad move.
What happens? These workers either increase qualification and get a better job that is not easily replaceable by robots, or commit suicide. I'm fine by both options. Whining doesn't help.
It does, in some countries the whiners can vote.
For example in UK people are afraid more qualified and cheaper workers will come to take their place. While at most 10% true, the press campaign scared the government into action, so they are trying to get out of the EU now.
I hope to live to see that.
@Maounique ok i agree, whining might help short term, but in the long term it only makes things worse for everyone.
By the way i'd also want out of the stupid EU
Neah, EU is good as long as it is not run by the neo-cons.
The time for neo-cons is when inflation is rampant and strikes are all over.
During a crisis generated by low demand, it is the time for socialists.
I have a particular tooth against EU since they put back the president the romanians voted 90% out. Okay, US had also a hand in it, as well as the secret services which blackmailed the constitutional court into reversing the referendum, but it was mainly EU pressure here, otherwise the winners would have not let it happen.
Complaining about things like this seems pedantic. I don't really see the point of doing so; not everyone can be a CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
I know there's a massive push that "everyone must go to university/college!" which then only yields people working in basic services that are now bitter because they felt that their college degree merited them a job without any further input. Still takes skills, still takes talent, still takes hard work and effort.
My first job ever was cleaning bathrooms. I hated it, so I found a different job. Now, 13 years after I started working for other companies, I make a nice sum of money without having been to college, all based on the aforementioned skills/talent/hard work/effort.
Don't like your situation? You're 100% in control of it. Not much need to complain about it in a massive 30-paragraph article. And please don't attempt to find an out that people aren't capable of making a change in their life; it's far easier to complain that life is too hard than to get off the couch and do something about it.
Amazon provides me with a lot of the items that I use in my life. Thus far this year...
... and there's still 30 days left in the year.
Amazon also lets me see everything I've ever ordered from them. This is the first item I ordered, way back in 1999: