How Amazon keeps costs low...

[Kzach]

EDITED: No politics.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As a teen, I worked as part of a grounds cleaning crew at a freight company in Texas.

Getting to work in the shade of the shipping areas- docks, temporary storage, etc.- was INFINITELY preferable to working in the sun.

But 100+ heat index or not, you don't discipline people for succumbing to the environment of the building YOU have them working in.

 

[IronWolf]

But 100+ heat index or not, you don't discipline people for succumbing to the environment of the building YOU have them working in.

Agreed.

 

[Umbran]

Ladies and Gentlemen, this site has a "no politics" rule. We expect you to abide by it.

That should be clear enough. If anyone has questions, please take them to e-mail or PM to a moderator. Thank you.

 

[Mallus]

I read the article on Gawker this morning... and it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I used to be really impressed with how quickly Amazon could ship stuff to me Philadelphia (we receive quite a few items practically overnight with the free shipping option). I'm not sure we'll stop shopping on Amazon, but now I'm afraid it'll be accompanied by guilt.

(we've already scratched the very convenient Target and utterly delicious Chik-Fil-A from our list of patronized businesses, over... ahem... disagreements with their policies/supported causes. To lose Amazon would be a huge blow to us as consumers, and therefore, citizens.)

I don't think this is indicative of Amazon's overall culture. Not yet, at least. But it's incumbent on them to rectify the situation.

 

[Dire Bare]

This is a very misleading article and a false subject line.

Amazon is a good company. They treat their people well. They have competitive benefits, better than you would get at probably 90% of production companies with warehouse workers. They let their employees at many sites bring their dogs to work. They have great parties. They pay a pretty fair amount above minimum wage for many positions you wouldn't expect them to. In general, they're a quality company.

Amazon is no sweat shop. If this warehouse is having problems, no doubt it's the property managers fault or the maintenance crew. Amazon is a huge company and they will lose track of things sometimes. But overall they don't look to shaft their employees.

Problem is the business model aims to keep real estate accumulation to a minimum to keep them flexible in terms of property. They try not to own the real estate they work out of, so they lease a lot of property and leave the management and maintenance of the property to the companies they lease from. So if there is a problem, it is most likely because an outside property management company isn't doing their job.

Shafting employees is not how Amazon keeps costs low. That is bunk.

Doesn't matter if the warehouse in question has conditions that are typical of warehouse jobs. Doesn't matter if the warehouse is directly owned and run by Amazon, or run by a subcontractor. Amazon is, at the end of the day, responsible for the conditions their workers must labor under, subcontracted or not.

This warehouse may not be typical of Amazon's warehouses, I certainly hope not! But it's got me reconsidering being an Amazon customer, and it's the main place I shop nowadays.

This kind of treatment of workers in unacceptable. Period.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Warehouses are hot... I volunteer (ie for free) for True Dungeon and work in the warehouse where this summer the heat index rose to a 121 in the warehouse. You suck it up and keep working. No, Amazons "treatment" of their employees is not unfair or even abnormal - read some of the comments below the article made by factory workers around the states and you'll find the Pennsylvania workers are being scoffed at. (not agreeing with that course of action, merely pointing it out.)

Factory work is not white collar or office work. It's hot, it's sweaty and it's damn hard. You go home exhausted and aching from every muscle screaming at you. But ultimately you do it because the job prospects elsewhere suck in many of the places they are located. I just feel for people that complain about the conditions because they have never experienced them, basing it on their own comfort level - talk to a farmer (like my grandfather was) sometime, they would gladly work in a cushy warehouse for only 8 hours a day.

Signing off from America's bread basket.

 

[Relique du Madde]

I read the article on Gawker this morning...

I'm pretty sure 90% of the people who post on Gawker are unaware that Blue Collar work is not all puppies and rainbows or as utopic as working for a Apple store as a "genius," sitting at a office desk twittling their fingers and surfing the internet, or ignoring a customer like a blue-shirt at the local bestbuy.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

No, Amazons "treatment" of their employees is not unfair or even abnormal -

I don't think its so much an issue of the heat itself- which may still be an OSHA violation, whether deemed wussy or not- but the disciplining of those who had to seek medical treatment. At least, that's where I have the biggest problem.

That's the kind of managerial behavior that leads people to ignoring the signs their body is sending them, and that gets people killed. I personally almost became a statistic durin HS two-a-days in Tx. I had stopped sweating, despite it being 90+, and my being in full pads in full contact drills.

Besides, you know as well as anyone that individual tolerances to temp vary from person to person, from region to region, and that while acclimation is possible*, it takes time. The article was unclear if these were new hires or vets.

As for the heckling comments, you know we had 71 days of 100+ heat down here in D/FW, and Waxahatchie topped 100 days. Come winter, Chicagoans will be watching our cities become paralyzed by the first snowfall to exceed 1". And when summer returns, we'll be wondering how northerners keep dying of heat stroke at 88F.






* I have personally lived- and nearly died of exposure- in climactic temperature extremes ranging from -50 to 118.

 

[Deuce Traveler]

I was a manager at Amazon.com and I can tell you that for the most part the article is absolutely correct, although the main reason we didn't open some of the dock doors was not theft (although that was a factor). It was because we didn't have a fool-proof way of sealing off the opening in case a dock worker backed up and didn't look where he was going. The warehouses that Amazon.com are very difficult to heat or cool because of their size and multiple levels. It would be too costly to do so. 15 minute breaks were extended to 20 minutes during high heat levels, but those are only two breaks (except lunch) in a 10 hour shift (4 days a week, 10 hours a day). Also, we as middle management were still expected to make our section's numbers despite the lengthened shifts, so we would cut in other areas that we probably should have cut (such as quickened the stretch exercises to save on unproductive time).

When asked if we could lower productivity requirements for our employees on severely hot days, upper management said no. Instead us middle managers did what we could, including filling up buckets of ice and bottled waters and carting them around to our employees.

I'm a big fan of lean six sigma and productivity increases, but management was also required to show a 10% improvement in productivity a year. You can increase productivity by making common sense changes to work procedures and better equipment, but the human body can only take so much stress. You can't try to make productivity increases by simply demanding the body to work harder in a repetitive task without the body wearing down. I can't imagine someone in Amazon.com working the same menial labor job for 20 years straight. The wear and tear would simply become too great, especially for the pickers who have to walk constantly and the packers that handle the boxing of multi orders and have to constantly bend. I'm also concerned with those handling single books. They fold cardboard around the books and put a label on them, which goes down a conveyor and to the sorting system. From the two years I managed my section, my worker numbers went from 100 books an hour to around 180 books an hour, or 3 books a minute. The motion required to do that job puts a lot of strain on the wrists, especially with the pressure required to properly ensure the glue seals. Some of this was offset by ergonomic changes to the work station, which helped the back and legs, but did not address the wrists. I had to move some workers around to other shifts and work areas in order to break up some trying to form a union because of the conditions. They would have had some support and would have been harder to deal with if the organizers weren't a bunch of lazy, woman-hating thugs.

The young and ambitious had a definite advantage in that environment, but we had trouble retaining them if they didn't see opportunities for promotion. More and more often we would hire temp workers who were older and out of shape, who couldn't keep pace, or the young slackers who didn't care about their job one way or the other. There are worse jobs out there, but Amazon.com definitely has some issues that it needs to resolve.