Undercover at Amazon

[adamanti]

"A BBC investigation into a UK-based Amazon warehouse has found conditions that a stress expert said could cause "mental and physical illness".

Prof Michael Marmot was shown secret filming of night shifts involving up to 11 miles of walking - where an undercover worker was expected to collect orders every 33 seconds.

It comes as the company employs 15,000 extra staff to cater for Christmas.

Amazon said the safety of its workers was its "number one priority."

Undercover reporter Adam Littler, 23, got an agency job at Amazon's Swansea warehouse. He took a hidden camera inside for BBC Panorama to record what happened on his shifts.

He was employed as a "picker", collecting orders from 800,000 sq ft of storage.

A handset told him what to collect and put on his trolley. It allotted him a set number of seconds to find each product and counted down. If he made a mistake the scanner beeped.

"We are machines, we are robots, we plug our scanner in, we're holding it, but we might as well be plugging it into ourselves", he said.


Adam Littler went undercover as a "picker" at Amazon's Swansea warehouse
"We don't think for ourselves, maybe they don't trust us to think for ourselves as human beings, I don't know."

Prof Marmot, one of Britain's leading experts on stress at work, said the working conditions at the warehouse are "all the bad stuff at once".

He said: "The characteristics of this type of job, the evidence shows increased risk of mental illness and physical illness."

"There are always going to be menial jobs, but we can make them better or worse. And it seems to me the demands of efficiency at the cost of individual's health and wellbeing - it's got to be balanced."


The RM business model......

[Judgee]

There seemed to be lots of similarities between working for Amazon and working for RM!

[taxi4leighton]

scary wasnt it.
that could be us soon
we already have the soul-less,heart-less ba*****ds,managers they have
thatchers children
what a legacy she left

[spilie]

managers being ba**ards is one thing but what gives me the right hump is our fellow colleagues, whinging, moaning and forever bitching then creeping up the managers ar*e and stitching someone up that's the problem with the job, so tomorrow when you go in to work look around and count the people who you could rely on if you were in the s**t and if you need 2 hands then I will be fu**ing amazed

[flimflamman]

There seemed to be lots of similarities between working for Amazon and working for RM!

Take away the CWU from our workplace and it would be the same,but with a 30% pay cut as well,throw in the odd late/sick day/not hitting your targets most of us would be out of a job by easter

[BettySwollocks]

This is a link to it,
hope it shows it ok

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... the_Click/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[vigilante]

Welcome to life without unions.

Everybody whinges about the union but look at the alternative.

[adamanti]

There seemed to be lots of similarities between working for Amazon and working for RM!

Take away the CWU from our workplace and it would be the same,but with a 30% pay cut as well,throw in the odd late/sick day/not hitting your targets most of us would be out of a job by easter

Not the perfect union, but your dead on, without it we would be heading to the bottom faster than Usain Bolt.

[slave]

Welcome to life without unions.

Everybody whinges about the union but look at the alternative.

Greed Britain. A wonderful place to work.
The alternative already exists and infests most of modern working Britain where most people can't be arsed or are too afraid to join a union. Apathy is rife, most have grown up knowing no other way. Unions are seen as last century. Not my opinion, just my observation.

[Darren Bent]

I wouldn't like to work in Amazon warehouse, it is not nice to be stuck in the warehouse all day/night and don't fancy working with a scanner all day as I won't be able to hear it. I wouldn't be surprised if Royal Mail see this video, and think let go to Amazon and learn from them to make it even more worse for us :( But it would be nice to see other side of the story. Problem with Britain there are lot of people out of work which the bosses take advantages of.

Would Amazon punish people if someone have to leave in an emergency ie their father have a heart attack. From what I seen it is mainly one person and few ex employees and expert opinion. It would be nice to have stories from more people and do both side. (Looking at social science perspective)

[chrisj]

We can all agree that the Union does a great job. However, it is not with or without the Union that is the problem in this kind of work places.

Amazon started purely as a private company and it is remit is clear - profit for shareholders, growth and capturing a large chunk of the market. They are a very successful company and they have their tentacles in many things - and one those will probably include capturing a large chunk of the Parcel business in their own right and/or possibly delivering mail.

RM staff benefits from history and the fact that we were and still is a quasi-government company that was originally set up to provide a public service. Union power is also embodied in the sheer number of workforce. So it is not as simply as they are not unionise so they suffer or that without the Union we will suffer equally.

It will take a long time before we get to be like those folks. It might happen sooner now that we are a part-privatised company but even then it is not the simple power of the CWU that will save us but our number and our power to lobby or influence or how bad the competition is.

[Budfrog]

They should all join a union .... simples:

http://www.theguardian.com/business/201 ... strike-pay" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Chelseablue]

We have no balls in britain everyone else hits the streets and voices there opinion we just shake our soft heads n moan

[gand]

Matt Damon puts it nicely here http://vimeo.com/48834336" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tman]

We have no balls in britain everyone else hits the streets and voices there opinion we just shake our soft heads n moan

Do they? Where does it happen then?