Amazon workers describe brutal work conditions

Has anyone here worked at Amazon? One of their fulfillment centers?

Is doesn't sound too fulfilling.

I’m started to think about nixing Amazon. Is it really that bad?


As a college boy, I recall working at UPS. It was savage. The USPS was alright.
But UPS was barbaric.

NEW YORK - Workers at a Staten Island Amazon fulfillment center claim they are working in brutal conditions that are more dangerous than coal mines and expected to do work at rates design for robots and not humans.
A rally was held Monday afternoon on Staten Island. Activists and workers detailed complaints and demands. The workers and activists protested what they said are inhumane job conditions. They want longer break times and free MetroCards for public buses to get to the worksite.
Organizers claim that more than 600 workers have signed petitions to demand the changes. Workers complain of "brutal shifts" often lasting between 10 and 12 hours. They claim that an analysis of Amazon's own data show the fulfillment center on Staten Island is more dangerous than traditionally dangerous sectors like coal mining and waste collection.
Amazon workers on Staten Island experience severe injuries that require them to miss an average of nearly 64 days of work annually for recovery, according to an analysis from Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change.
www.fox5ny.com...

A neighbor of mine is putting up a cousin that moved here to W MI to take care of an ailing relative, he's staying at their house short-term while getting the housing situated for them. He used to work across the state at the Brownstown, MI warehouse, and claims the work atmosphere is nowhere near as hectic & chaotic as people claim it is. He said it's about as strenuous as any given factory job is.

Quick edit: Hit submit before I meant to. He said he liked the job & the benefits a lot, and that it was a tough choice for him to walk away from it. Granted I don't know him at all, and he won't be here long enough to really get to know, he doesn't seem like the BSing type, so I'll take his word for it.

My ex-wife did when we were younger. She had the same complaints and I told her to just work at a comfortable pace and give them the finger. I have the same advice for the employees in New York. What are they gonna do, fire them all during holiday season?

a reply to: Willtell

Amazon? That is not the word i would use to describe it.

Workers at an Amazon warehouse are having to urinate in plastic bottles rather than go to the toilet during their shifts, it has been claimed.
The reports came as crowds of protesters gathered outside the internet giant’s so-called fulfilment centres across the UK to demand improvement in workers’ conditions

www.independent.co.uk...
bezos-a9012351.html

Almost 50 serious injuries – including broken bones – have been suffered by Amazon workers at its Tilbury warehouse in the past two years, figures show.
The GMB union uncovered figures from Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations that reveal 47 serious injuries including fractured feet, toes and fingers and a string of back complaints, resulting from incidents listed variously as “lifting and handling” and “struck against object”.

www.mirror.co.uk...

A former employee at Amazon's largest UK warehouse has claimed staff are 'treated like slaves', with many found asleep in the toilets because they are so exhausted.
Michael Gabay, 42, described his time at Amazon's Tilbury depot in Essex as '100 days of hell

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Amazon workers describe brutal work conditions

Fortunately for Amazon Workers we live in a free country and they can quit and go find a job where they aren’t so oppressed. If you don’t like where you work...quit. If the conditions are that bad it will force the employer to change. Crying about it does zippity doo dah.

If you don’t like it, get a nice job in construction. I hear roofing or hanging drywall is easy.

a reply to: Willtell

They lose me when they attempt to argue working at Amazon is more dangerous than working in a coal mine. hyperbolic claims such as that neuter arguments quickly.

The article claims that Amazon's numbers went up since 2016 because Amazon began reporting every incident, regardless of severity. I believe it because I've seen it in various industries over the same period. It's called "Behavior Based Safety" and it's a huge thing in the oil and gas sector, with most oil and gas companies going over the contractor's historic reports with a magnifying glass and actually rejecting proposals from companies that have too few safety reports, as counter intuitive as that sounds. The idea from them is that everyone has "near misses" routinely in the workplace, so if the safety self-report record doesn't include a certain number of near misses per 100 employees, the company is obviously failing to report them and if they're failing to report them, then they're either not monitoring or they're not learning from those potential mistakes/accidents waiting to happen.

Oh, and demanding free bus passes? Seriously? Nothing says "this will correct our brutal and dangerous work conditions and sweatshop shifts" like free bus passes do. :rolleyes: Time for scabs.

I once had the misfortune of living in Florida for about 5 years. For part of that time, I worked at a retail store where my job was to unload the tractor trailer trucks. Because of various factors, the only way to unload the trucks was to set up roller racks and unload all of the boxes one by one - which meant that I spent long periods of time lifting boxes inside hot tractor trailers sitting under the hot sun in the horrid Florida heat and humidity. The point here is that I had to work in HOT conditions for extended periods of time, which I managed to do just fine.
Now - here's why I'm telling this.
At one point I got a job at a UPS facility where my job was to take boxes off of a conveyor line and put them in their respective UPS trucks. It was so hot inside the facility that I ended up starting to have heat stroke or something - I stopped sweating and started become confused about where I was and stumbling around like I was drunk. It was worse than working in those tractor trailers. Now, up to that point, I had obviously been drinking water to try to prevent myself from, you know, literally dying. At one point I asked the supervisor if I could go to the bathroom quick. His response went something like this: "Welll, we can't tell you you can't go to the bathroom, so if you reeeaaalllly need to go, you can... But if you miss your boxes we'll have to fire you."
I walked out and didn't return.

When I hear stories about Amazon employees having to wear diapers and piss themselves or pee in bottles all day, I can believe it 100%. I'm honest to God surprised we aren't hearing about people in these places actually dying.

a reply to: Willtell

I had a friend who worked at Asda/Walmart in the UK at a big warehouse packing and his stories shocked me about how much was expected of them per shift .

Picking from shelves then rapping stuff on crates then loading on trucks something like 20-30 tons per shift , it takes a toll on the human body and the crazy conditions that were in their contracts , if they got in trouble with the law in their free time they could be sacked for bringing the companies name into disrepute

originally posted by: stonerwilliam
a reply to: Willtell
if they got in trouble with the law in their free time they could be sacked for bringing the companies name into disrepute

Like Walmart of all companies, needs any help with that. Their reputation's been in the toilet for years.

a reply to: Nyiah

He actually got a decent payout from them after putting up with them for 8 or so years , back strain and non stop stress from crazy bosses

originally posted by: trollzI'm honest to God surprised we aren't hearing about people in these places actually dying.

I don't know how accurate the article is below, but there are a few... I did hear about one employee having a heart attack and dying... then discovered an hour later.

www.theguardian.com...

a reply to: Willtell
64 lost time days a year is a lot of injuries. I worked in factory assembly work with lots of sheet metal brazing and 1000 other things to get injured on. Their loss time is outrageous, why hasn't OSHA been called in to investigate.

a reply to: Willtell
Don't know any personally, but a friend of mine works in a warehouse next to an Amazon FC and says they can't keep help because of how bad they treat their people.

a reply to: Willtell

Then quit. I'm not sure why this sort of thing gets reported anymore. I mean they could all quit. Yes it is hard and sometimes jobs suck harder than a black hole but that doesn't mean someone is holding metal to your head and forcing you to go and work for Amazon. Now no I'm not saying what Amazon are doing is right and that other companies should do the same. I'm saying if you don't like your job find another and then quit working for Amazon.

Right now I'd kill for a job. Any job at this moment. Heck if I were in better shape and was a lot better looking (a lot "lot" better looking lol) I'd be a man for hire sadly this isn't to be so I'm stuck working in a school that have kids who seem to think the word "No" means "Yeah go ahead and flip that table in anger" and I would quit if something else would come along that was like this or promised the same hours.

Plus the holidays are great: 15 weeks out of the year, two at Christmas and Easter plus six long beautiful weeks in the middle of summer.

originally posted by: PhilbertDezineck
a reply to: Willtell
64 lost time days a year is a lot of injuries. I worked in factory assembly work with lots of sheet metal brazing and 1000 other things to get injured on. Their loss time is outrageous, why hasn't OSHA been called in to investigate.

Bezos has probably paid off all the OSHA investigators. It wouldn't hurt his account any.

Violation of labour protection laws is at an all time high.

They need to up the penalties of non-compliance.

No more slap on the wrist fine for you Amazon. Now Mr Jeff Bezos and his directors & executives will be digging ditches 18 hours a day, 7 days a week for the next 50 years.

Not fair? Should've thought about that before you conducted yourself like a Medieval Baron instead of a person born after the rights of man and division of labour were penned.

I work for a company that has a policy of reporting every single injury no matter how small or insignificant. If you pinch your hand in a desk drawer you have to report it and get it looked at by medics. Failure to do so can result in losing your job. The number of safety incidents is minuscule compared to the number of employees and hours worked per year. But they key is the safety culture - they have been pushing this for years and it pays off.

a reply to: trollz

At one point I asked the supervisor if I could go to the bathroom quick. His response went something like this: "Welll, we can't tell you you can't go to the bathroom, so if you reeeaaalllly need to go, you can... But if you miss your boxes we'll have to fire you."

Ha ha...retired from UPS back in 2016, after nearly 31 years. I drove for the first 5 years, before loading "package cars" (they're trucks, damn it!) from midnight to 9 AM. Anyway, the third year driving, a package fell from a shelf while I was sorting some packages on the floor. It landed on my finger and broke it. I called my supervisor (before cell phones), explaining that I had broken my finger and it had swelled up really bad. He said to continue driving and he'd meet up with me asap. He finds me on my route in 20 minutes time and hands me an ice pack and a bandage. I show him my little pinky, which had swelled up almost to the size of my big toe and told him to have fun finishing my route, because I was taking his car to the ER. You should've looked at his face. The lazy bastard wasn't expecting that response.

a reply to: Willtell
Peeing in bottles? Don't you need a pilots license for that?

But yeah, the Amazon center by us is supposed to be only for high energy employees.