Everyone loves to order from Amazon. It is so easy to access, super quick to be delivered, and during quarantine it was most of our main source of shopping. It is the most convenient for everyone, but do you know the horror story that happens before items are delivered to your home? No! Today, we're diving in the brutal behind the scenes of Amazon.
Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, is underpaying and overworking workers to accumulate his own wealth in the company. As these workers continue to build amazon, Bezos is taking them for granted and treating them like they owe it to him. Bezos is seen as a role model to upcoming business owners, so he is negatively influencing others to adopt these horrible behaviors.
James Bloodworth , a British journalist, worked as an undercover picker and Amazon fulfillment center. He found workers peeing in bottles because bathroom breaks were highly discouraged. They limited their potty breaks as much as possible, but as a female using bottles as a toilet is extremely difficult, so bathroom breaks are kind of a necessity for women. People were given disciplinary notices for toilet breaks, so women were prone to these notices.
As James worked undercover, things were not at all what he expected!
He knew it was going to be hard work and a different environment since it was a warehouse, but he felt like working there was, in his words, “ like a low security prison.”
What!?
Drug and Alcohol tests are a requirement prior to starting the job, but if you think that is a huge deal, keep reading. Coming into work, they had to go in and out of massive airport security gates, even if someone was just going to the restroom; this is a way to keep them from going to the restroom. Even worse, workers were given a disciplinary notice for taking a sick day, and if they had to take off for a week due to health issues, they’d lose their job, even if they were given a doctor’s note.
You heard the restriction, but now we are talking about the working requirements employees had to make or else consequences were involved.
Pickers had an obligation to pick 300 items an hour. 300!!! That is about one item every 12 seconds from different shelves in a towering warehouse. They rank your productivity and make you push beyond your limits. To meet the requirement, people ran around the warehouse, but that’ll get them a disciplinary. The only way to meet the quota is to run, but since that was prohibited they could reach their requirements which, you guessed it, would get them a disciplinary.
The employees go through the worst to keep their jobs and still end up fired for anything. As I hear about the harsh labor and underpaid workers, I think of modern day slavery. These employees are expected to do what humans aren’t used to.
It is quite appalling to hear about these experiences because it is just showing how wealth has continuously been built on mistreatment of others and evil ways. People are constantly looking up to millionaires and billionaires like Jeff Bezos when it is the people with underpaid wages that makes it all happen! Billionaires and millionaires may start the process, but without these low income employees that are often taken for granted, half of the people today wouldn’t be wealthy.
Let's stop idealizing rich people who build wealth on other people’s backs just to forget those same people, and start acknowledging the hard working neighbors who bust their butts to make a living. Being rich doesn’t make you any more hard working than anyone else, that just means some rich people have selfish ways to cheat their way on top.
Add comment
Comments