Amazon UK Unpacked: Sad Conditions at the Rugeley Warehouse

[Prestidigitweeze]

Apparently, working as a "picker" at Amazon's warehouse in Rugeley, Staffordshire feels like being fixed to the clock hands of the factory in Metropolis (only with a bit less privacy).

"'You’re sort of like a robot, but in human form,' said the Amazon manager. 'It’s human automation, if you like.'"

"Amazon Unpacked": Story in The Financial Times

[HarryT]

Interesting article. Thanks for the link.

[Mike L]

Yes, thanks for posting it. It's an eye-opener for all Amazon customers.

There was a similar story a few months ago about the Amazon site at Glenrothes - highlighting the awful working conditions there. It seems that, until you clock on for a shift there, you don't know for sure if you'll be working the full shift or only half the shift. That's bad enough, but if you work a half night-shift, you finish at 3 am, and there are no buses to anywhere until 6 am, so you spend the rest of the night just hanging around without any payment (I might have got these details slightly wrong, as I am writing from memory, but the gist is corrrect.)

Mike

[fjtorres]

The "picker" jobs described in the report likely won't be around much longer.
Amazon, too, dislikes those "human robot" jobs.
That's why they bought KIVA systems, so they can turn those jobs over to actual robots.
The packer jobs should remain, though...

[HarryT]

As the article says, though, £220/week for that job is a lot better than £54/week on the dole. In an area of high unemployment, I'm sure there'll be no shortage of takers.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Amazon is often seen as the antidote to the bloated dominance of companies like B&N, but I'd rather work at B&N than one of Amazon's "centers." I've never heard of a book clerk being placed under Amazon's level of scrutiny. This isn't how I want workers to have to live.

Movies and magazines in the '90s often editorialized that chains were killing off smaller stores, with their quirks and personal touches. Now that chains are becoming too real-estate-dependent to survive in a website-with-warehouse market, and customer service in stores has been replaced with self-service whenever possible, we're seeing worse conditions and stability for workers than the '90s could have imagined.

Having read about this, I'll try to redirect more of my business to indie stores like St. Marks Books and Powell's, which offer e-books as well as the printed kind, and to companies like Kobo which are interested in helping indie stores as well as well as their own chain.

I'd like to see online booksellers rated by worker treatment as well as customer service, and not just in permanent job slots. I'd like to know how temps are treated as well.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Amazon is often seen as the antidote to the bloated dominance of companies like B&N, but I'd rather work at B&N than one of Amazon's "centers." I've never heard of a book clerk being placed under Amazon's level of scrutiny. This isn't how I want workers to have to live.

It's entirely normal for call centres. The company I work for, among other things operates IT helpdesks for other companies, and the desk agents are monitored to the second, with every break timed, average time taken to deal with each customer - everything. If they sign off 1 minute early one day, they have to make it up the next day. Real "Big Brother" stuff.

[Billi]

Originally Posted by Mike L

Yes, thanks for posting it. It's an eye-opener for all Amazon customers.

The German eyes have been opened a few weeks ago when there was a big TV documentation about working for Amazon during the Christmas time. Besides the working conditions itself a great problem has been the living conditions of the workers who came from all over Europe and who where surrounded by a frightening security company day and night.

(We had a discussion about it and many links in this thread - starting from post 21 - but I'm afraid it won't help you much as it is in German)
http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=204524

[ProfCrash]

Nothing all that new. If anyone had done a search on the internet, they would have found similar articles from the US Warehouses.

The nature of the work force is changing. Yes, that sucks but what do people expect? Attitudes towards workers rights have shifted, Unions are being attacked (at least in the US), and individuals are interested in saving money and limiting the number of benefits that an employee gets is a great way to drop the price of any given item.

This has been happening for a long time. Amazon is not doing anything that other companies running warehouses are doing. If you think that the warehouse used to send out internet orders from BN are run any differently, I have a bridge to sell you for a really good price.

We all have a choice. We can choose to pay the lowest price and allow the warehouse model to continue to grow or we can shop at local stores and pay higher prices but hope that the employees are getting benefits of some sort.

Then again, I never got benefits when I worked retail in college and grad school. I have a sneaking suspicion that most of the worker bees are not getting benefits.

[pidgeon92]

“The feedback we’re getting is it’s like being in a slave camp,”

I've had crappy jobs like this too. However, I've always been well aware that slaves and other oppressed peoples had it significantly harder than I could ever even imagine.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by HarryT

It's entirely normal for call centres. The company I work for, among other things operates IT helpdesks for other companies, and the desk agents are monitored to the second, with every break timed, average time taken to deal with each customer - everything. If they sign off 1 minute early one day, they have to make it up the next day. Real "Big Brother" stuff.

That's really pathetic.

[HarryT]

It's all about controlling costs and maximising efficiency. It's a hugely competitive business.

[fjtorres]

And it's not all that different from working at a factory assembly line, now or ages past.
Take a widget from a conveyor, attach a screw, put it back on the conveyor... Repeat every other minute for 8 hours straight. Entire nations have been built that way.
You respect the workers but that is life in industrial society and always has been.
(A bit late for hand-wringing.)

[rdfry]

Wow, Jeff Bezos has always been about profits and market share. Suck everyone in with cheap prices control market then raise prices.

[BeccaPrice]

We don't know about the "raise prices" bit though.