From the BBC:
“Amazon: What does 'peak season'
mean for employees?”
Amazon orders are pouring into
warehouses around the world as people rush to buy Christmas gifts and take
advantage of Black Friday deals. But for those fulfilling these orders, peak
season - as workers call the run-up to Christmas - is not especially festive. It means long hours, hard work and for some,
difficult decisions. One young woman working at an Amazon warehouse in the US
describes driving hundreds of miles to drop her child with his father for the
whole Christmas period. Her schedule means she cannot look after him. She posted a picture of herself and her child
in their car on a Facebook group. The
BBC gained access to the group, which has 20,000 members, and is a place where
workers discuss their jobs, lives and working conditions. Amazon insists that
it pays industry-leading wages and that working conditions in its warehouses
are very good. Jeff Bezos, chief
executive and one of the world's richest men, has resisted calls for
unionisation. The Facebook group paints a complex picture of the firm. Lots of
people say they are worried about being fired. Some (but not many) of the group
appear to enjoy their jobs; lots of people make light of their daily routines
with black humour, memes and videos. Sometimes they share good news about
promotions or bosses spontaneously buying them pizza. One has posted a live video of recent protests
at a Staten Island warehouse alleging poor working conditions. The first
comment below it reads: "They will take names and six months from now none
of those people protesting will be working there any more." Others point
out that there did not seem to be much of a crowd, with some saying that while
they agreed with the sentiment, it was "stupid" to protest. Amazon
told the BBC: "Fewer than five Amazon associates participated in the event
outside the Staten Island fulfilment centre. It was obvious to the 4,500
full-time workforce that an outside organisation used our building and the
upcoming retail holidays to raise its own visibility and spread misinformation.
"The fact is that Amazon provides a safe, quality work environment in
which associates are the heart and soul of the customer experience, and the
notable lack of Amazon employee participation shows that associates know this
to be true."
'No more than five deaths'
One woman on bereavement leave is
concerned that she won't have a job when she returns because she is not sure
how many times she is allowed to "be off" for family funerals. She
seeks advice on the group. "No more than five deaths" replies one. Amazon
responded: "Employees have time-off options they can choose to use if they
would like." Another person on the group alleges that they earned just $20
(£15.50) for working an extra day while having $198 deducted for one sick day. Amazon warehouse accidents total
440 And another describes a car
accident she had on the way to work. After treatment in hospital, she called in
to work to show her discharge papers to "prove" to HR that she has
good reason for not being at work. Even though the doctor prescribed bed rest
for two-to-four days, the woman says she was advised she needed to return to
her manager and start her shift, four hours into it. Not doing so will mean she
falls into negative PTO/UPT (paid time off/unpaid time off). The woman pointed out she couldn't lift any
objects and was on a lot of medication. She does the sensible thing and goes
home. The next day she alleges she was fired. Amazon said it could not comment
on specific cases without names and the BBC has decided not to reveal the
identities of those in the group. The woman's post receives a mixed response.
One worker tells her she needs to start a lawsuit, saying that her bosses had
agreed a settlement after she took them to court. But another says she shouldn't have used up
all her UPT, as that is what it is for. What no-one says is that she should
take her case to a union. Many fulfilment centres now
employ robots (moving shelves essentially) to carry goods around the warehouse On a recent visit to a fulfilment centre at
Manchester Airport, I asked general manager Neil Travis why the firm was so against
unionisation. "We provide industry-leading pay and benefits and we deal
directly with our team. We'd rather hear directly from them in terms of whether
there are any issues, whether there is anything they want to share with us and
whether there is anything we can do to help them," he tells me. "We
have a forum that represents people within our building. We'd rather just have
direct conversations with the people that work here, and that has been fairly
well-received and respected by our teams." The UK's GMB union said of Mr
Travis's response: "Amazon bosses are burying their heads in the sand if
they don't think they have a problem. Conditions are appalling. "Their
forum is clearly not fit for purpose. Amazon needs to get round the table with
GMB and discuss ways to make their workplaces safer and to give their workers
an independent voice." Amazon hit back, describing the union as
"self-interested critics with a vested interest in spreading
misinformation about Amazon". "The truth is that Amazon already
offers industry-leading pay, comprehensive benefits, as well as a safe, modern
work environment."
Accidents and incidents
A Freedom of Information request,
sent to the UK's Health and Safety Executive by the union and shared with the
BBC, suggested that reports of serious incidents at the Manchester Airport site
had doubled over the past three years, from 10 in 2016/17 to 22 in 2018/19. The
reports include cases of workers fracturing bones, another suffering
concussion, falls and a collision with heavy equipment. For injuries to be
reported to the UK's Health and Safety Executive under Riddor (Reporting of
Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulation) they must be: from a
list of specified injuries, including fractures, amputations, sight loss, crush
injury, burns so serious that the person has to have seven days off work When I
visit, a notice board in the lobby proudly proclaims that there have been 33
days since the last incident, although Mr Travis cannot say what that was. It
turned out to have been a minor fall. Meanwhile, evidence is mounting in the US
that working conditions could be improved. The New York Committee for Occupational Safety
and Health Administration said in its recent report, Time Off Task, that
employees at the Staten Island distribution centre were encouraged to work
faster and limit breaks, causing physical pain in 66% of the 145 workers
surveyed. Amazon dismissed the survey as "biased", saying only a
fraction of workers were questioned. But an exclusive report from tech website
Gizmodo suggested that Amazon's own figures submitted to the OSHA revealed
"staggering" injury rates at the warehouse. According to one lawyer, they are higher than
the national warehouse average and industries known to be dangerous, such as
waste collection and policing. In response, Amazon told the BBC a
"snapshot of injury recordings" was misleading, adding that it
invested heavily in safety. "Safety training is constant, both in making
sure employees know how best to work with the technology in the facility and
also how to prevent injuries. "There's
a dramatic level of under-recording of safety incidents across the industry. We
recognised this in 2016 and began to take an aggressive stance on recording
injuries, no matter how big or small, which can result in elevated recordable
rates and makes comparisons difficult." Last month a worker died in an Amazon
warehouse in Ohio. Although Billy Foister had a previous heart condition, and
there is no suggestion his death was caused by working there, it is claimed his
collapse went unnoticed at first, with co-workers told to go back to work. On
the Facebook group seen by the BBC, people claiming to have worked alongside
him say that he had visited the warehouse's medical clinic the week before,
complaining of chest pains, but was not given any time off. Amazon said it was
"deeply saddened by the loss of one of our associates". "Billy
Foister experienced a personal medical incident onsite and lost consciousness. "Several trained and certified Amazon
team members responded within three minutes to administer CPR and the AED
(defibrillator) and did all they could to support him until local EMS
(emergency medical services) arrived, within 10 minutes, to transport him to
the hospital for further treatment."
My trip to an Amazon warehouse
On the wall of the Manchester
Airport fulfilment centre is a worker bee - a symbol of Manchester since the
1800s, when the city was full of textile mills, commonly described as hives of
activity, with the workers the "bees". Amazon's fulfilment centres
are the digital age's equivalent and working conditions are undoubtedly a vast
improvement on the mills of old. It is far less frenetic than I expected. There
are not hundreds of people hunched over workstations - in fact there are far
more robots than people on the floor I visited. I had a go at packing. I manage
one parcel but the packer showing me the ropes told me he can do 230 per hour General manager Mr Travis points out that the
company runs public tours, with members of the public and schoolchildren
invited to see conditions for themselves.
^ The conditions at Amazon around
the world doesn’t surprise me (whether rightly or wrongly.) The seem to treat
their workers like they do their customers. I pre-ordered something that was supposed
to arrive on November 26, 2019 and now it isn’t coming until between December
10-15, 2019 and that new status only changed after waiting all day and seeing
that the item was arriving that day by 8 pm. ^
