Amazon Worker: "We are basically machines"

[GiantMonkeyMan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25091315 - (short video and link to article in quote)


Amazon workers face 'increased risk of mental illness' (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25034598)

A BBC investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse has found conditions that a stress expert said could cause "mental and physical illness".

Prof Michael Marmot was shown secret filming of night shifts involving up to 11 miles of walking - where an undercover worker was expected to collect orders every 33 seconds.

It comes as the company employs 15,000 extra staff to cater for Christmas.

Amazon said in a statement worker safety was its "number one priority".

Undercover reporter Adam Littler, 23, got an agency job at Amazon's Swansea warehouse. He took a hidden camera inside for BBC Panorama to record what happened on his shifts.

He was employed as a "picker", collecting orders from 800,000 sq ft of storage.

A handset told him what to collect and put on his trolley. It allotted him a set number of seconds to find each product and counted down. If he made a mistake the scanner beeped.

"We are machines, we are robots, we plug our scanner in, we're holding it, but we might as well be plugging it into ourselves", he said.

Adam Littler went undercover as a "picker" at Amazon's Swansea warehouse
"We don't think for ourselves, maybe they don't trust us to think for ourselves as human beings, I don't know."

Prof Marmot, one of Britain's leading experts on stress at work, said the working conditions at the warehouse are "all the bad stuff at once".

He said: "The characteristics of this type of job, the evidence shows increased risk of mental illness and physical illness."

Same old shit.

[#FF0000]

Prof Michael Marmot was shown secret filming of night shifts involving up to 11 miles of walking - where an undercover worker was expected to collect orders every 33 seconds.What's up, warehouse labor?

I've worked in a lot of warehouses, and given my experience I have to say this doesn't surprise me at all, especially in the more "modern" warehouses. At Wal-Mart DCs, I remember the labor being a lot more physically intensive (talking about lots of heavy lifting aside from all of the walking), but working at an Amazon subsidiary, where I was allowed to listen to music with one earbud and where the labor was lightwork to the extreme, was probably the most miserable job of my life. I've had plenty of shitty jobs but none that actually made me miserable while I was away from the floor.

[rednordman]

I too work in a warehouse and it amazes me the shit that goes on,yet no-one gives a shit. Everyone moans and that, but the short cuts and fiddling the figures businesses do to look good is nothing short of an outrage. What surprises me about all this is how they are all highlighting amazon. I can think of many other big British businesses who are even worse.

[consuming negativity]

I remember reading about the horrors that are Amazon's warehouses years ago. The author even notes how this is "coming out" (you know, as if this is some big conspiracy) during a time where Amazon is going to be seeing a large amount of business. Like you said - same old shit.

[bricolage]

A handset told him what to collect and put on his trolley. It allotted him a set number of seconds to find each product and counted down. If he made a mistake the scanner beeped.
From a Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ed6a985c-70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab49a.html#slide0) article:

Others found the pressure intense. Several former workers said the handheld computers, which look like clunky scientific calculators with handles and big screens, gave them a real-time indication of whether they were running behind or ahead of their target and by how much. Managers could also send text messages to these devices to tell workers to speed up, they said. “People were constantly warned about talking to one another by the management, who were keen to eliminate any form of time-wasting,” one former worker added.

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

[rednordman]

From a Financial Times (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ed6a985c-70bd-11e2-85d0-00144feab49a.html#slide0) article:Before all the rightwing newspapers accuse these workers of bitter sensationalism i can honestly say that there is nearly 100% chance that those accusations are totally true. BUT what i will say, is that companies like Amazon have a tendency to take on management who do not have a clue how to manage. Thus they come out with stupid shit like the latter quote.

What I do find significant is how now these companies are being force to take on long-term unemployed and ex-cons. For the last 8 years most of the recruits came from abroad. A lot of the foreign labour didn't have the language skills or knowledge of the law to actively defend themselves, and thus they would do whatever there management tells them (literally everything). Its funny how what this article mentions has been going on for years and no-one says anything, but now there are more British people working at these places, news gets out fast. Kind of proves sticks a big middle finger up at all those twats who said I had it easy working in a warehouse and deserved to get paid a rubbish wage. Now some of them see what its like for real, they cry like babies. Well I did warn them, guess they just chose to stick their heads up their you know whats...