Tech & Biz

Amazon Treats Workers Poorly

by Karenke4 | December 16, 2008 at 10:58 am

224 views | 4 Recommendations | 2 comments

Amazon is receiving flak from an article published this week in the Times Online reporting poor working conditions in their warehouse.

A reporter went undercover as a temporary, hourly employee with Amazon after hearing rumors of unsatisfactory working conditions. She found that employees working there were required to work 7 days out of the week, which included a 10 hour overnight shift. They also had extremely hard to achieve “mandatory” packing quotas, no authorized sick days and physically grueling work which included lifting heavy boxes continuously, or walking up to 14 miles a day retrieving boxes.

Additionally, the reporter was given very few transportation options for getting to the warehouse itself.

She was told that the hourly rate for a day shift was £6.30, 57p more than the minimum wage. She worked on an evening shift until midnight, earning £6.80 an hour, but was told that she would have to pay £8.50 a day to use a communal bus laid on by Quest unless she could arrange her own travel to Amazon’s warehouse.

The warehouse at Marston Gate, in an isolated spot off the M1 between Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire and Dunstable in Bedfordshire, is half a mile long and stocks everything from cuddly toys to saucepans. It is one of four such sites that Amazon runs in the UK.

Amazon is one of the largest suppliers for Christmas gifts in the UK according to statistics. This year, more shoppers are looking for bargains, and often that means shopping online.

“Amazon is the biggest online retailer by value and weight of traffic.” Christmas is the busiest time for all online shoppers. An IMRG survey showed that 77% of shoppers were planning to do at least half of their shopping for presents online this year.

Amazon, like other companies, often hire cheap, holiday labor who do not fall under the same guidelines as permanent employees.

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bonbayel

at 12:10 on December 16th, 2008

This must be the result of workers being treated poorly. Think how much Amazon could save in both packaging materials and postage by treating them properly, so they cared about matching packaging to product! Think about how the enviroment would be improved by being able to ship more packages in the same space, as well as using less cardboard per package!

bonbayel has contributed a photo to this story.

lefty_liberated

at 23:31 on December 16th, 2008

I dont know if its worse at this point to be a Western worker or an Eastern worker. We're now getting screwed on both sides. As time goes on I'm becoming more of a socialist. Workers of the world unite!

These guys better get their act together or they're going to have an Amazon watch group PDQ. They should be unionized anyway.

It's always important to know how workers are being treated. We dont get enough information about it on the production side or the other end. More of a reason for people to Stop Shopping.