"Inside Amazon's warehouse----- Lehigh Valley workers tell of brutal heat, dizzying pace...."

[WinkyDink]

Over the past two months, The Morning Call interviewed 20 current and former warehouse workers who showed pay stubs, tax forms or other proof of employment. They offered a behind-the-scenes glimpse of what it's like to work in the Amazon warehouse, where temperatures soar on hot summer days, production rates are difficult to achieve and the permanent jobs sought by many temporary workers hired by an outside agency are tough to get.

Only one of the employees interviewed described it as a good place to work.

Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse. Such sights encouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury lest they get fired as well, workers said.

During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time.

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/mc-allentown-amazon-complaints-20110917,0,1246510.story
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm calling "Pulitzer" right NOW.

[WillyT]

1. K & R !!!

:mad:

:kick:

[peacebird]

2. I look up books I am interested in on Amazon, then go order from my local independent bookseller

I may have to pay the full price, but the money stays in our little town and it supports local people.

[lunasun]

7. Me too!

[nilram]

41. Or Powells.

Unionized, and you can buy used books at a cheaper price.
powells.com

[cliffordu]

57. Yep - I loves me some powells. Come to PDX, be amazed.

[kestrel91316]

3. I don't ordinarily shop Amazon. Guess now I never will. Effin' corporate slavedrivers.

[Brickbat]

4. Amazon is a hugely anti-union company, and I will not buy anything from it or through it.

[RebelOne]

5. I used to buy from Amazon, but after reading this, I doubt that I will again. n/t

[Enthusiast]

63. Me too.............nt

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Oh dear..sounds like the Wal-Mart of the book and etc world.

And drats, I use Amazon used book sellers a lot.

[lolly]

22. The independent used book dealers don't necessarily do this

Unless it's listed as "fulfilled by Amazon," the independents package and ship their own books.

Many are independent booksellers or small merchants.

Some (like me!) are just former grad students with hundreds of books to get rid of.

I made back about 600$ of the 1000s I spent on books by selling them on Amazon.

So, that money goes out into the economy, and may benefit small businesses.

Now, when I go to Amazon, I always try to find small sellers with used copies.

[DrunkenBoat]

28. Those "independents" kick back some of the money to Amazon. They're not really "independent,"

more like serfs.

They pay amazon to use its facilities, and kick back a percentage of sales.

[lolly]

33. Selling on consignment

Yes, a percentage of the sale price goes to Amazon--it's consignment selling. But the orders aren't packed and shipped by the people in Amazon's workforce.

They are independent in the sense that they run their own businesses, and this is one way for them to make sales.

[DrunkenBoat]

34. I've never seen a consignment shop where i had to pay a fee just to display

the goods.

nor where i had to come into the shop & do all the work.

not meant to criticize you, people do what they have to do.

i just think ebay, amazon, all these places are incredible rip-offs.

they're also killing real-world stores.

[InvisibleTouch]

44. Independent sellers don't pay Amazon just to list.

You pay a percentage when an item sells, but there's no fee just to list your stuff. Same with half.com - you pay nothing until you make a sale. For eBay you do have to pay an insertion fee (sometimes), but there are ways around that and ways to lower it. eBay takes a huge bite of a seller's profits, I'll agree with you there (they also own PayPal, which takes another bite), but all of these types of sites have made it possible for many people to have their own business from home, or make some much-needed extra cash. I have no beef with them.

[DrunkenBoat]

49. There's a monthly fee or a "referral fee", in addition to the commission.

I call those "fees to list your stuff".

You say these places have made it possible for people to have a little business or earn extra cash.

I say they've made it possible for large private corporations to extract economic rents on a national & international scale, siphoning money out of localities and local small businesses & into their own pockets.

[Politicalboi]

51. But local businesses use Amazon

I used to partner with someone who sold on Amazon and it worked great. There was no monthly fee only a percentage of the sales. It's fair. It's like going to the swap meet and renting a space. Only with Amazon you can rent thousands of spaces and not pay till you sell the item.

[DrunkenBoat]

54. According to Amazon, there is either a referral fee + closing fee for small sellers

or a monthly fee for large ones -- in addition to commission for each sale on both.

So I have no idea what your friend was doing.

I stand by what I said: Amazon etc. is a method by which large centralized corporations extract a cut out of re-sales that were once purely local and remove it from the local money stream. A cut all out of proportion to the service rendered.

I might add that those little sellers help draw more eyes to amazon & add to their bottom line in that respect to.

Not to mention that amazon doesn't have to pay local sales in most localities -- so it gets off in the $ it takes to collect those.

Not to mention they treat their employees like shit & maintain a revolving door of temps to avoid paying benefits.

all in all, they suck, & this walmart by mail business model is destroying business & communities.

[Cherchez la Femme]

59. I've always used A Libris

alibris.com

I'll have to compare them & Powells

[madrchsod]

8. walmart is just as bad

[DrunkenBoat]

55. So what? They're all bad, that's the point. There's no alternative, despite all

the yuppie window dressing to get you to think that some companies don't extract profit from labor as viciously as others.

[blue neen]

9. Life as we know it here it Corporate Corbett's Pennsylvania.

Worst Governor Ever.

[sam11111]

10. nt

[senseandsensibility]

11. Very despressing.

It's not just the conditions the workers have to endure, although that's bad enough. It's the overall economy and lack of jobs that cause them to have to put up with this.

[TBF]

12. Ugh. I love my Kindle, but this is ludicrous. Does anyone work for B&N

and can talk about their labor practices? I'm willing to get a different reading device.

[tpsbmam]

16. I don't and don't know anyone who does -- all I can tell you is back when there was a Buy Blue site

(sigh -- I still miss it!), B&N was a pretty solidly blue company. Amazon was about 50/50 (this was when Shrub was in office) and B&N was blue, blue blue! If that holds true with their employee policies, it's a better place to work. But political beliefs don't necessarily translate to employee policy so the question remains unanswered.

(I don't remember most of the blue companies.....the fast food place Sonic surprised the hell out of me but it was solidly blue back then; Bed, Bath & Beyond.....)

[Nye Bevan]

17. If you buy your books on Kindle, you are not affecting the warehouse workers (nt)

[TBF]

18. Sure, but I am hating the owners, don't really want to buy stuff from them

if that's how they're treating workers.

[DrunkenBoat]

29. But you *are* adding to amazon's bottom line. which affects its workers.

[MrNJ]

48. I turned down an offer from B&N

at their NJ warehouse because of the management and employment practices.

[nadinbrzezinski]

13. And this is ...

why you need UNIONS.

Oh and use secondary shippers, that is what we do...

[Glimmer of Hope]

14. Mr. Bezos can afford to do better.

Major Direct Holders (Forms 3 & 4)
Holder Shares Reported
BEZOS JEFFREY P 88,077,492 Aug 18, 2011
DOERR L JOHN 2,924,962 Nov 6, 2009
PIACENTINI DIEGO 109,646 Aug 15, 2011
WILKE JEFFREY A 88,934 Aug 15, 2011
STONESIFER PATRICIA Q 62,883 Sep 1, 2011

Current share price = $239.90

[druidity33]

24. Is that really

around 21 Billion dollars in Amazon stock that he owns or am I doing the math wrong?

:shrug:

[SoapBox]

15. And don't forget other wildly anti-union companies, Target, Delta Airlines and Fresh & Easy.

..."prefering" to remain non-union, from the corporate standpoint, is one thing.

But all of these companies spend millions of dollars, to threaten, scare, intimidate, etc. their
employees into not joining unions. Many time, flat out illegal stuff, that the law says that
the companies cannot do.

Then, when votes fail and are appealed or complaints are filed against the company, they cry the blues, whine and snivel that they did not do anything wrong.

It stinks.

[Lucian]

19. Sounds like Walmart.

We were treated the same way. They threatened us with our jobs (not flat out, but implied) if we didn't keep up with the pace.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. omg. I've got to kick my Amazon addiction. Started with books, now find myself

ordering 'stuff' because it's easier.

[Nye Bevan]

21. Amazon Prime is one of the best things ever (nt)

[Mojorabbit]

25. I know

and one click ordering is so wonderful. This is a very depressing story in a multitude of ways.

[PatSeg]

43. Same here

I thought they were one of the best run companies around, but now I see who has been paying the price for all that super efficiency. Yet another indication that we're on our way to becoming a third world country. If the middle class is obliterated, who will buy all these goods and services? Is this a matter of the snake eating its tail?

[Shagbark Hickory]

23. You mean to tell me that people are picking, packing, stowing etc!? God I thought this was all done

by machines.

[DrunkenBoat]

30. yeah, the internet makes labor obsolete, you'd think to hear some people talk.

not.

[Shagbark Hickory]

36. Not necessarily but if any warehouse was automated, I'd imagine it would be Amazon.

I guess that explains the orders where one tiny item arrives in a very large box. If you have to pack hundreds of orders then who's got time to find the right size box?

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[DrunkenBoat]

27. And their business model has a lot to do with not collecting sales taxes.

http://www.thestreet.com/story/11052898/amazon-sales-tax-the-battle-state-by-state.html

[DrunkenBoat]

31. They overtax the police as well, according to this:

The cost of having police respond to the Amazon.com warehouse and distribution center in Upper Macungie has been a constant headache for township supervisors.

That's why they were relieved when the Seattle-based company paid for round-the-clock police protection last week after a former employee allegedly called in a bomb threat.

Berks-Lehigh Regional police Chief Michael Weiser said Amazon offered to pay when it made the request for 24-hour police staffing at the Boulder Drive facilities.

Weiser said Amazon wanted the police presence to ensure "their employees' health and safety."

http://articles.mcall.com/2011-07-19/news/mc-upper-macungie-amazon-20110719_1_online-retail-giant-supervisor-sam-ashmar-police-presence.


LOL. Yeah, they're all about their *employees* health & safety.

[tilsammans]

32. That's it. No more Amazon for me.

Amazon's founder and CEO, Jeffrey Bezos, keeps climbing the ranks of the world's wealthiest people. Forbes magazine estimated his net worth to be $18.1 billion this year, making him the 30th wealthiest person in the world. That wealth is tied to the value of Amazon stock, which has grown about eightfold to nearly $240 per share over the past five years.

Worth more than 18 billion dollars, and this is the way you treat your employees? :spank:

[dixiegrrrrl]

35. Just wait a few months until the market crashes......

the great leveler will strike.

[newspeak]

42. god, they treat their employees like shite!

I also loved ordering on amazon, not just books. I guess I'm going to be doing my business somewhere else. If they treat their employees that bad, they do not deserve any ones business.

[elocs]

37. K&R

[Blue_Tires]

38. Although I shouldn't be, I'm still surprised at how many similar stories

have come out in recent months involving big-name, 'respectable' companies...

[alp227]

39. So low prices = slave labor? And are they even US citizens

or imported undocumented workers?

[defendandprotect]

40. Slavery is on the agenda -- corporate/fascism -- !!

[joanbarnes]

45. The same impossible production goals at at&t U-Verse, frequent firings, despite "union" protection..

[LisaM]

46. I've never ordered a book from Amazon.

I find it depressing that they are managing to force the bookstore model out of business and I resent how they are changing the face of main street with their business model. This doesn't surprise me in the least, but I don't foresee even many of my enlightened friends giving up their convenience because of this. I mean, half the people I know who use Amazone do it do get a book one day earlier! Really? Is that so important?

[disndat]

47. This is Charles Dickens world.

How has this been allowed to happened? Bezos' a Walton clone.

[Politicalboi]

50. Amazon has other sellers

I used to have a sales account with Amazon, but if you fuck up a little they close it. Which they did. But most of those sales goes to the little guy who is just trying to sell their junk. Amazon does get a cut of the sales, but it comes from others who are just trying to make some money selling their stuff. Amazon gave us 3.99 for shipping, and the sellers ship the package they sold themselves. So by buying from Amazon you help other americans make ends meet. Now buying directly from Amazon is another story.

[matt819]

52. Hang on just a minute

They interviewed 20 disgruntled employees. That seems to represent about 2% of the permanent workforce of 900 and a minuscule percentage of the peak workforce of 2000. Sure, the conditions sound awful, and management remarkably hostile to the employees, but that's not a terribly bad percentage of unhappy employees. If you want a zero unhappiness percentage, turn to the commander of the POW camp in Bridge Over the River Kwai who admonished his prisoners, Be happy in your work.

I think one of the problems here is the outsourcing of jobs to subcontractors. This simply provides an excuse for each party to blame the other for abuses, and the labor contractor almost certainly doesn't have the profile of their client. I can't help but think of the problem at the Hershey's plant reported earlier this summer. Here, too, the well known company abdicated its responsibilities by turning over their labor force to a contractor, and these guys seem not terribly far removed from thugs. Which is not to say that Amazon or Hershey's are not responsible for poor working conditions.

[DrunkenBoat]

56. They turn it over to subcontractors so they can plead ignorance & deny responsibility over & over

again.

That's the point of the business model.

[valerief]

53. Billions of dollars can be spent on air-conditioning in Iraq but the the corporate overlords

in the U.S. can't provide it? Don't the corporate overlords own the U.S. government as well as their businesses? Why would they permit air-conditioning in Iraq but not in Pennsylvania?

[Parrcrow]

58. K&R

[harmonicon]

60. news flash: the point of capitalism is profit, not worker contentment.

Shocking, I know. Thank god most businesses haven't figured this out yet and are spending most of their resources on making sure their employees are happy and just being content to make enough money to make ends meet.

[femrap]

61. I applied for a job in KY

a long time ago....it sounded like hell.

[RegieRocker]

62. Amazon warehouse, where temperatures soar on hot summer days

No wonder they call it Amazon

[sulphurdunn]

64. Amazon

is merely one facet of the face of unregulated, non-union, labor intensive capitalism. It's no different now than it's ever been. It's no different here than it is in China or India or Mexico or anywhere else. There is always a tiny brood of blood sucking leeches at the top, thousands of sociopathic, mid-level scavengers in the middle and tens of thousands of desperate wage slaves at the bottom. The system is as old as the pyramids, and it hasn't changed, except in name, for 5,000 years.