Amazon apparently treats its employees really badly

[Strk]

Do people not realize this is how all distribution centers are run? Your groceries, HD, Lowes, Walmart, Target, third parties that people have never heard of.....

 

[DrunkenSano]

Why are people surprised by what's going on? For a minimum skill required job, the only way for improvement is to raise what is expected of each worker. There is no real job where at the annual review, the boss doesn't ask for more. This goes from the top down, management will be asked for more results, whether this is by efficiency, changing the production model, etc, it has to be done. When you get to the bottom of the barrel, it is to ask for the workers to do more, or replace them with robots who can do more. The time is coming where the latter will be happening.

 

[MarkXIX]

The real assault on the middle class is coming from Google and Amazon in the forms of automation. If we thought it was bad before, just read through some of the plans they have for automating even upper middle class jobs and not just menial labortype jobs.

Who the hell is going to buy from these companies if there are no jobs to occupy?

Which is what Bill Gates dropped on an MSNBC reporter who thought she would one up the guy by forcing him to discuss fast food wages. His reply boiled down to fast food companies choosing to automate the work in lieu of paid employees doing it.

I'm not condoning the practices listed in the article, but these methods are nothing new in any number of sectors. Take call centers for example...

 

[mshan]

Might those stories be more accurate from the depths of the recession (2011; Occupy Wall Street time) when the perception was you were lucky to get a job at one of these Amazon warehouses:

"Well, what if I do start crying?" I ask the woman who warns me to keep it together no matter how awfully I'm treated. "Are they really going to fire me for that?"

"Yes," she says. "There's 16 other people who want your job. Why would they keep a person who gets emotional, especially in this economy?"

Still, she advises, regardless of how much they push me, don't work so hard that I injure myself. I'm young. I have a long life ahead of me. It's not worth it to do permanent physical damage, she says, which, considering that I got hired at elevensomething dollars an hour, is a bit of an understatement."


http://www.motherjones.com/politics...-free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor?page=1

Now that economy has improved and general perception is that jobs are more readily available, I don't think Amazon can employ quite as ruthless tactics any more:

"Along with its jobs announcement, Amazon's PR department was ready for the utterly predictable media criticism that the jobs are nothing more than menial, low-wage shop floor jobs. Its retort? These new jobs will pay on average 30% higher than typical retail jobs. That's a good thing for the employed, no doubt, to be paid more for a similar skill-level job.

But with its emphasis on low prices, how can Amazon afford to boost those wages so much? It all boils down to efficiency. Think about Amazon versus another retailing giant without the same level of sales, but with a similar "low prices" kind of push: TJX companies (owners of TJ Maxx, Marshalls, and Home Goods). Last year, Amazon had retail sales of over $60 billion globally (up from $47 billion in 2011); TJX brought in about half that, at almost $26 billion globally (up from $23 billion in 2011).

Whatever the companies' similarities, the differences between the two couldn't be bigger; and those differences have profound impacts for investors, as well as for the future of our economy.

On one hand, you have companies like TJX—so-called "bricks and mortar" retailers—which in order to do business every day must staff a few thousand stores, and keep them open for 10, 12, or even 24 hours per day. That means greeters, checkers, security, customer service, and stockroom employees, plus bright lighting, catchy displays, and other ordinary features of a quality retail facility.

Companies like Amazon have bricks and mortar too, of course, as displayed on the recent junket in Tennessee. But that's about all they have. Amazon can operate in facilities far off the beaten path, with nothing but wire shelves and cement floors, and they can serve just as many customers from only a fraction of the locations—and a fraction of the manpower—that their competitors require. On just about every front, the company is more efficient than its peers. But let's look specifically at two of the top expenses for virtually any retail company: its plant and its people.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-...ncom-creates-5000-jobs-destroys-25000-process

http://www.wric.com/story/23414538/amazon-to-fill-more-than-500-positions-at-virginia-facility (LOL, health insurance and stock options now)

It's the ugly side of a free market economy that we all benefit from (e. g. Walmart pricing keeping inflation lower than it might otherwise be in this country)

 

[BikeJunkie]

Whoever wrote that article has a rather annoying writing style. Zero flow and a lot of awkwardness... more interested in showcasing wit and off-cantor subtleties than just delivering the fucking message.

 

[yuchai]

I got a kick out of the link at the bottom that takes you to buy the author's book on Amazon.

Anyway I'm not convinced that shopping at local stores at a higher price is the right thing to do? I have no idea how those employees are treated, and frankly, most of them are pretty grumpy too and certainly don't seem to give a crap about me.

I do like my local hardware store and the people there are nice, but most of the time they stock inferior products at higher prices. I sometimes buy from there when I need something right away, but frequently regret it later when I come across the shortcomings of the product.

 

[yuchai]

Whoever wrote that article has a rather annoying writing style. Zero flow and a lot of awkwardness... more interested in showcasing wit and off-cantor subtleties than just delivering the fucking message.

This. You can tell right away that it was written by someone with a purely academic background.

 

[foghorn67]

BTW, anyone who plays Candy Crush Saga - they stole the game and adds insult to injury... boycott that too.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidth...ns-furious-open-letter-to-candy-crush-makers/

Is King really expecting sympathy?

 

[poofyhairguy]

I guess you pulled that figure($600) from your ass, right? You looked at every shop, but Amazon was $600 cheaper?! Either that's a fuckin' miracle, or you didn't get the camera you thought you did. I'd expect to pay a ~20% premium to a shop that that makes quality products, and treats its employees well. If that's being "brutalized" you're living on the margins, and should be buying canned goods, and not cameras.

No one "makes" products locally anymore unless we are talking something like fences or food.

 

[lxskllr]

No one "makes" products locally anymore unless we are talking something like fences or food.

"Local" is relative. My buying preferences start at my house, and the circle grows as necessary. "Local" can mean my town, state, country, or hemisphere, and I always prefer closer. I recently bought and returned(easy return btw) a set of ViceGrips because I didn't realize they were made in China. I paid a premium price to support people local(my country) to me. Problem is that's not what happened. I went to HarborFreight and got a set that were honest about their origin for 80% less(cause I needed them now), and researched American made locking pliers online. I'll be buying a set of those shortly, and for only $1 more than I paid for the ViceGrips.

 

[WelshBloke]

Mostly what I read was "boo hoo!! we have to work instead of goof off" sob stories from employees. Any worker that is not capable of handling his/her job and that can't reach the same productivity of other employees SHOULD be replaced. That's how businesses get better, by replacing weak workers with better ones. Are you suggesting that once a business hires someone they should be stuck with that person eternally even if they under-perform?

I hope you didn't reply from work.

 

[thraashman]

The whole article is aggrivating, but this bit is downright infuriating.

On June 2, 2011, a warehouse employee contacted the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration to report that the heat index had reached 102 degrees in the warehouse and that fifteen workers had collapsed. On June 10 OSHA received a message on its complaints hotline from an emergency room doctor at the Lehigh Valley Hospital: “I’d like to report an unsafe environment with an Amazon facility in Fogelsville. . . . Several patients have come in the last couple of days with heat related injuries.”

On July 25, with temperatures in the depot reaching 110 degrees, a security guard reported to OSHA that Amazon was refusing to open garage doors to help air circulate and that he had seen two pregnant women taken to a nursing station. Calls to the local ambulance service became so frequent that for five hot days in June and July, ambulances and paramedics were stationed all day at the depot. Commenting on these developments, Vickie Mortimer, general manager of the warehouse, insisted that “the safety and welfare of our employees is our number-one priority at Amazon, and as general manager I take that responsibility seriously.” To this end, “Amazon brought 2,000 cooling bandannas which were given to every employee, and those in the dock/trailer yard received cooling vests.”

 

[monkeydelmagico]

^ Worker says "It's dark down there in the mines." Company issues one flashlight.

It's funny because I know some of the folks that worked at that distro center. Their getting ready to open another one near Trenton. If you last longer than 6 months you are a fast individual who never gets sick and rarely need to go to the bathroom.

Can't compare it to walmart store work. The pace and demands for stocking shelves at wally world is a cake walk compared to amazon distro center.

We, as a country, are going to have to figure out how to keep everyone busy and give them a check. The more we automate the larger the unemployment rate is going to get.

 

[Jeff7]

I'll add in that I saw similar treatment at a Home Depot warehouse: Closed doors for fear of theft. (Though there were cameras all over the place, and fencing surrounding the facility.)

Not that this is a good thing that everyone's doing the same thing...workers have long been treated poorly, up until unions started showing up. Then they got all complacent and corrupt, as often happens.




The writeups for low performance are doled out automatically by the system. What sucks is that sometimes you'll get written up for doing your job: The facility is large, and each item counts as one "pick." So if you get a long string of refrigerators, your forklift simply cannot move fast enough to get the boxes from one end of the building to the other, and still maintain your hourly picking requirement. That's what knocked me under the limit: A quarter trailer of small refrigerators, with only two per pallet, and there was a limit as to how high they could be stacked. So even if you assume 0 time for picking up the pallet, you still couldn't meet the minimum requirement.

Or you get a crappy pallet truck with worn wheels, and you have to spend a fair bit of time stopping to pick up boxes that get shaken off of the pallets.


Flip side: If you get a pick order for small shelves, they're heavy enough to keep themselves firmly in place on the pallet, and they stack very quickly, so your hourly pick rate suddenly surges. Then they expect you to maintain that rate.


Lousy temp work. Bleh.

 

[Imp]

The whole article is aggrivating, but this bit is downright infuriating.

I remember an episode of Undercover Boss in a warehouse. There were drinks in fridges available, but only for when warehouse temperatures got "really" hot.

Makes sense not to air condition warehouses cause they're so damn big (with loading areas open), but damn... do something else for the people at least.

 

[mikeymikec]

Why are people surprised by what's going on? For a minimum skill required job, the only way for improvement is to raise what is expected of each worker.

In a job that exclusively involves packaging items in boxes and sealing them, what level of improvement would you expect?

What I don't get is that this must be one of the simplest jobs for a manager. For starters, it would be sensible to promote someone to a management position from the ranks so that the manager has first-hand experience of what's involved, but if not, they pick a few of the most productive packaging employees, keep tabs on their progress over a period of time, then they have a metric for what to expect from their employees.

A good manager would also have kept tabs on what the absolute peak levels of productivity (e.g. on the lead up to Christmas when the site is at its busiest), and know what the workers could manage if pushed to their limits, then the manager will know if temps need to be employed at peak times of year in advance.

If anyone can think of a simpler situation to manage, I would be surprised. McDonalds probably has the same level of complexity, I've had a McJob and had some days where I don't think I could have worked any harder. They simply know how much work they can expect from employees with enough experience and they budget accordingly to ensure that the customers get what they want in an acceptable timeframe without the employee turnover being too high (which in itself harms productivity).

Back to Amazon, I think that if a manager believes it is possible to achieve higher throughput, they should have to adopt that role for say a month to see whether their expectations are realistic.

Makes sense not to air condition warehouses cause they're so damn big (with loading areas open), but damn... do something else for the people at least.

Fairly simple I would have thought, assuming that the warehouse isn't in the tropics - the roof should have panels that can be opened, and have large fans in the walls to stir the air enough without being overly noisy. But perhaps my expectations are incorrect here as the UK is more mild than a lot of other places. Even in the UK I can't imagine running around a warehouse would be much fun heat-wise.

 

[DrunkenSano]

We, as a country, are going to have to figure out how to keep everyone busy and give them a check. The more we automate the larger the unemployment rate is going to get.

There is no way, automation is going to be cheaper and more efficient. It's a no brainer for management to make. No business is going to choose the more expensive and problematic option because it is a business, which means they are in it to make money.

 

[Miramonti]

One thing that stands out is that it quotes many of these people have to walk 13-15 miles a day. This is all at peak performance. In other words, your 15th mile is supposed to be within the same time frame and within the same low tolerance of deviation from the high expectations of your 1st mile, right after you walk in the door. And not just for 8 hours but 10 or 12 hours in some cases, and in some cases heat 100+.

I can't imagine a job more hellish than this, day after day, short of being a slave. If the decade were different, I think Cesar Chavez would have said 'fvck you, you pussies' to the migrant farm workers and represented the Amazon warehouse workers instead.

 

[DrunkenSano]

It sucks if that kind of job is the only one you can land, and as long as there is still a pool of workers available, nothing is going to change.

 

[CZroe]

You can't make money from nothing. If someone is cheaper than everyone else, the money comes from lower quality parts, or lower paid employees.

...or more efficient distribution or economies of scale, both of which Amazon has in their favor.

 

[OverVolt]

Which is what Bill Gates dropped on an MSNBC reporter who thought she would one up the guy by forcing him to discuss fast food wages. His reply boiled down to fast food companies choosing to automate the work in lieu of paid employees doing it.

I'm not condoning the practices listed in the article, but these methods are nothing new in any number of sectors. Take call centers for example...

Yea but it still exports jobs. The end result is just wealth inequality. Derp derp. Everything is fine in moderation but we are pretty far past the time when automation was enhancing the economy.

 

[OverVolt]

...or more efficient distribution or economies of scale, both of which Amazon has in their favor.

Economies of scale goes both ways. Too large and the layers of administration eat up resources. Everyone knows you scale up operations and get more productivity everyone seems to forget the downside.

 

[zinfamous]

I think Amazon has had something like one profitable quarter in their history.

I guess they simply can't afford to treat their employees well.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

I guess you pulled that figure($600) from your ass, right? You looked at every shop, but Amazon was $600 cheaper?! Either that's a fuckin' miracle, or you didn't get the camera you thought you did. I'd expect to pay a ~20% premium to a shop that that makes quality products, and treats its employees well. If that's being "brutalized" you're living on the margins, and should be buying canned goods, and not cameras.

In case you haven't figured it out yet, a lot of photography shops, especially the chain stores, have closed up shop.

I tried three retail places, two of them photography stores, and every single one of them wanted list price, $3299.99 for the camera body. Amazon and B&H wanted $2699.99. I made the effort to see if the locals would negotiate off the list price and they chose not to. Fine by me, but the savings added to the great equalization of sales tax was to my benefit.

 

[BarkingGhostar]

Originally Posted by BarkingGhostar
Hmm, so you are suggesting I should have paid $600 more for my Xmas camera in order to support Amazon's brutalized employees?

An efficient company does not brutalize it's employees. This is not the age of slavery. It's not going to be luxurious working for the cheapest retailer, however.

I was being facetious. My point was the person I was responding to was claiming the brutalization. My money speaks for me, and I spend it where I deem that it is best for me. That is all.