Undercover author finds Amazon warehouse workers in UK 'peed in bottles' over fears of being punishe
Source: Business Insider
The author James Bloodworth went undercover at an Amazon warehouse in Staffordshire, UK, for a book on low wages in Britain. He found that the warehouse's fulfillment workers, who run around Amazon's massive warehouses gathering products for delivery, had a "toilet bottle" system in place because the bathrooms were too sparse to get to quickly.
"For those of us who worked on the top floor, the closest toilets were down four flights of stairs," Bloodworth told The Sun. "People just peed in bottles because they lived in fear of being disciplined over 'idle time' and losing their jobs just because they needed the loo."
Amazon is known to track how fast its warehouse workers can pick and package items from its shelves, imposing strictly timed breaks and targets. It issues warning points for those who don't meet its goals or who take extended breaks.
A separate survey found almost three-quarters of UK fulfillment-center staff members were afraid of using the toilet because of time concerns. A report released Monday with the survey's findings said 241 Amazon warehouse employees in England were interviewed.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-warehouse-workers-have-to-pee-into-bottles-2018-4
Chinese labor standards comes to the US and UK.
ailsagirl
(22,904 posts)OhNo-Really
(3,985 posts)Greed IS legal, and Right to Work is appallingly employer biased; however, the attack on Amazon is coming from the GOP & the Golfer, amiright?
Bloodworth (really his name?) wrote this apalling story alledgedly cma
https://leftfootforward.org/2014/04/breitbart-time-for-americans-to-start-slaughtering-muslims-in-the-streets/
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)Or Zuckerberg's house. Or Both. "Special Delivery"
CountAllVotes
(20,879 posts)These are some seriously sick SOBs in my book.
Boycott these disgusting POS'!
You can do without their highly impressive Amazon Prime account, YES you can!!!
grantcart
(53,061 posts)gyroscope
(1,443 posts)white collar workers at Amazon don't seem to be much better off.
80 hour work weeks with few benefits, cut throat working conditions.
CountAllVotes
(20,879 posts)Just another sh*thole.
We know all about these sh*tholes don't we?
They flourish under people like tRump! He just loves it!
& recommend!!
gyroscope
(1,443 posts)one has to be pretty desperate for work to take a warehouse job at Amazon.
murielm99
(30,780 posts)Locrian
(4,522 posts)you know, pee in a bottle, a certain US president... just sayin...
BigOleDummy
(2,272 posts).... twice now (very short period of time both times) I can verify this. I worked in returns and as a picker. Pickers are the ones referred to in the article btw, and while I never pee'd in a bottle I made damn sure I quit drinking liquids period at least two hours before starting my shift. It was correctly stated that they track the pickers, both as to time and their location. (its built in to the software of the scanners). Too much time between "picks" and you heard about it. More than 20/30 minutes not picking a day was cause for action. As was stated, if you worked on one of the upper floors you just did not have the time to "go". Those warehouses are HUGE too, if your pick route had you at one aisle and bin for one pick the next COULD be all the way across the building and all the way to the other side too. Or even another floor. Across the building. On the other side.
The bins can have multiple different items in them too, not just different colors of the same item but different items altogether which made it very hard to get each pick done in time. Yes , each pick is timed. Open a bin and start searching and HOPE the item you picked up first was the right one. More than one maybe two "wrong" picks and you were over the time limit. Which made you late for getting the next item ...... which might be all the way across the building as I said. Lord help you if you had to get something off the top bin because then you had to get out your step ladder which pretty much blew you time for that pick.
The warehouses are fairly dark too, depending on the maintenance crew for that building. I was in the high value section a few times (watches, jewelry etc.), and over half of the lights were out, which made identifying the correct item much harder and slower. No extra time for that though.
Anyway, I do not use Amazon anymore and won't.
gyroscope
(1,443 posts)the warehouses are so huge that it takes up most of your lunch time walking back and forth to the break room.
I guess the labor laws don't apply to Amazon.
ailsagirl
(22,904 posts)I read that Amazon workers had to work their asses off without any kind of A/C
This might have been fixed, I hope. But I always remembered that and how inhumane it was.
Laffy Kat
(16,391 posts)CountAllVotes
(20,879 posts)As "a gift" it says in the box.
Leave feedback that says: a "gift" from amazon.com ... or a neutral if
Glad to know you take things seriously.
I've been boycotting them for sometime now!
melman
(7,681 posts)To hear some around here tell it.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)wasn't much worse.
JCanete
(5,272 posts)make the company our friend. Having read the message boards at DU here for the past couple weeks, that's going to be hard for me to process.
DeminPennswoods
(15,292 posts)bought a thing from them.
Also, how disorganized are their warehouses that a pick list is generated that runs a worker from one end of the warehouse to the other? Are they picking only 1 order at a time? That seems very inefficient. They certainly should not be keeping two different items in the exact same location either.