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Behind the Scenes at Amazon's Warehouses: Not So Pretty

by Terrence O'Brien on December 14, 2009 at 02:30 PM

We often forget that online retail outlets aren't staffed by bundles of fiber-optic cable or powered by magic. No, it takes real flesh and blood human beings to find your goods, pack them up, and ship them out. And during the holiday season it takes many more workers than normal. Every December, Amazon hires up to 1,000 additional workers for its largest "fulfillment center" in Coffeyville, Kansas. The Huffington Post read through the job listings, and it's clear that working in digital retail is not easy.

Amazon is searching for "smart, friendly and dedicated people with a strong work ethic," to fill various positions. All of the opportunities involve standing for 8 to 10 hours a day, constant lifting, bending, and stooping, and at least one requires employees to walk 10 to 15 miles a day. In order to draw employees in, Amazon is offering to pay the camp fees for those traveling in RVs.

Granted, the work sounds tough, and with a starting pay of $10.50 an hour it clearly isn't going to catapult anyone into the upper class, but what is particularly worrisome is that Amazon reportedly has a history of abusing its workers. An article from last December in the Times alleged that employees at a U.K. fulfillment center were punished for taking sick days and forced to work seven days a week -- including a ten-and-a-half-hour overnight shift from Saturday evening to Sunday morning. Employees were also expected to meet quotas, which even a manager described as "ridiculous" to the Times, such as packing 140 Xbox systems for shipment in an hour.

But before you think this is a U.K.-only problem, or that Amazon learned its lesson after the exposé printed last year, Reuters reported last week that a former employee had filed suit against the company in Seattle for cheating workers out of overtime pay.

We're not saying that everyone should boycott Amazon -- just that those of us who bad-mouth Best Buy and refuse to shop at Walmart because of how it treats employees and customers, should remember that purely digital retailers have employees they can mistreat too. They're just hidden behind the scenes, and much easier to forget about. [From: Huffington Post, Reuters, and The Times]

Tags: amazon, economics, shopping, top, warehouse, work

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