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09.20.11 - 1:20 PM
The Amazon Sweatshop
An exposé of the Amazon.com warehouse in the Allentown, Penn. Morning Call found medieval conditions for scores of mostly temporary workers: insane rules, escalating quotas, random firings, no benefits, closed doors and suffocating heat that could top 110 degrees. The company's response: popsicles, bandanas and paramedics in ambulances parked outside to treat the (many) fallen.
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50 Comments so far
Show AllWe have become Nazi Germany.
And in this dystopian iteration, if you are poor, you are the target for a "final solution". Until that happens, they'll just work us to death.
After Amazon screwed Wikileaks last year, no ethical person should be patronizing Amazon.
Ray, Could you explain that. I missed it and would appreciate your input.
I cancelled my Amazon.com and PayPal accounts over their efforts to kill Wikileaks. It is inconvenient but satisfying to have done that. Plus, I save money, because if spending money is not convenient and easy, then I spend it less.
Amazon does put you in touch with secondary sellers, though. It helps out local businesses in that way.
Bookfinder.com will do somewhat the same. I'm not sure how many of their sellers are local, but it is an alternative.
So will alibris.com. I used to use abebooks.com as well -- until it was bought out by Amazon.
Totally off topic, does anyone know an internet website that sells cd's. (Yes, I still buy cd's sometimes. Don't make fun.) However, I will not use Amazon and do not want to use big stores like Best Buy. Sorry. Please continue discussion.
Inverted Totalitarianism where people are crushed on the altar of the economy as opposed to political ideologies:
"While the versions of totalitarianism represented by Nazism and Fascism consolidated power by suppressing liberal political practices that had sunk only shallow cultural roots, Superpower represents a drive towards totality that draws from the setting where liberalism and democracy have been established for more than two centuries. It is Nazism turned upside-down, “inverted totalitarianism.” While it is a system that aspires to totality, it is driven by an ideology of the cost-effective rather than of a “master race” (Herrenvolk), by the material rather than the “ideal.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Harley Davidson is doing similar things with their "casual" workers. I suspect this is happening in many companies all over the country. In the case of Harley, they are firing people without notice and with no explanation. Casual workers are those whose hours vary according to workload. They call in on Fridays to find out their work schedule for the coming week. Hours vary according to production orders. The employee calls in and enters his/her employee id number when requested by a computer. Those fired find that their employee id is no longer recognized by the computer system. Thats it. Termination without notice and no reason given.
Indeed, welcome to the age of NEOFEUDALISM.
All that's missing from the Amazon company site: 'ARBEIGHT MACHT FREI."
Galenwainwright, I have a beautiful photograph of that by Garry Seidel, with a black cat on the train tracks. Sort of a family memento, to the one who survived. I prefer Bertrand Russell's "In Praise of Idleness."
"Arbeit macht Frei" not "Arbeight"
Also missing are the machine gun towers, typhus, electrified barbed wire, lice, 1000 calorie a day feedings, guard dogs, hours long roll call, random executions, medical experiments, shaved heads, gas chambers, ovens and capos.
Other than that, yeah! Just like a death camp!
Boo Amazon. How could you repeat history like that...
Give them time.
It's a jungle out there.
Someone should call OSHA. And hope they haven't been completely eviscerated.
Read the linked article. OSHA was called several times - including a call by an ER doctor receiving employees with heat exhaustion. OSHA regulations are largely toothless - relying on self-enforcement by the employers and OSHA is grossly underfunded and understaffed.
A happy ship is a healthy ship - this is sickening. I'm glad I sold AMZN.
Another Amerikan corporation showing us clearly why we don't need unions anymore.
And the sickest part of all? Amazon made over a billion $$ last year :) Obviously not enough to pay their workers a living wage or provide benefits or provide decent working conditions. I mean a billion $ really isn't THAT much, you know.
On the other hand we have the US Post Office hopelessly drowning it debt and a burden on everyone who happens to pay taxes.
The post office is around 8 billion in arrears. By comparison, the taxpayers shell out 20 billion a year in Iraq and Afghanistan for air conditioning the troops' tents. Personally, I prefer the "burden" of the Post Office over that of the AC tents. Bring the troops home and the Post Office becomes solvent and the taxpayers pocket 12 billion.
The problem with the US Post Office is it's fundamental purpose in an era of email, instant messaging, and texting in wireless/cellular world. It needs to be revisited. I am not proposing it be totally eliminated, instead it may face a similar fate as the telegraph industry.
"The telegraph accelerated the speed of business transactions during the late nineteenth century and contributed to the industrialization of the United States. Like most industries, it faced new competition that ultimately proved its downfall. The telephone was easier and faster to use, and the telegraph ultimately lost its cost-advantages. In 1988, Western Union divested itself of its telegraph infrastructure and focused on financial services, such as money orders. A Western Union telegram is still available, currently costing $9.95 for 250 words."
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/nonnenmacher.industry.telegraphic.us
Doesn't Amazon patronize the USPS?
If our corporations are no better than Red Chines sweatshops, then why trade with them at all? Might as well cut out the middlemen, trade directly with Chinese companies, and let the US "Corporate Persons" just die.
I always thought Amazon was too good to be true, and now we know why .....
Better Abbey, more articles on economic injustice that effects all types of people please, less divisive identity politics, thanks!
I am not surprised by any of this. This is how migrant workers are treated routinely. And after reading the entire article I am thinking it's more ISS at fault than Amazon. Not that Amazon isn't aware of what's going on. They are. But this is a "good business" practice for them.
You've heard people say migrants do the work "citizens" refuse to do? Now you know why "citizens" chose to find other work. But that was during a time when there was other work.
I think we might want to revisit why and how the teeth were taken out of OSHA and Worker Compensation, and who exactly benefitted from those reforms.
My other concern not really labor related, but a possible consumer issue is: how good is it for some of the items like electronics to be stored in a wharehouse wjere temperatures get that high? And how carefully is the product I am purchasing being handled when quotas are set unreasonably high and workers being pushed to the breaking point?
ISS, or Integrity Staffing Solutions, is a labor contractor, that Amazon uses to wash their hands off any responsibility for what's going on. Other companies do exactly the same thing - it eliminates the problem of unions, benefits, labor conditions, and so on. This is how cheap labor is treated.
A few months ago CD published an article about IKEA moving production to the US to take advantage of cheap labor, low (if any) corporate taxes, and pro-corporate labor laws. The latest big corporation to do the same is BMW. Details here: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/sep2011/sprt-s19.shtml
Notice that BMW, like Amazon, doesn't employ their workers directly, either. They have a labor contractor and they can fire the workers any time they please.
The Hershey company in Hershey, PA, does the same thing, running their warehousing operations with outside contractors who do the hiring, firing, work quotas, etc. Hershey also recently moved a large part of its operations to Mexico. I no longer knowingly purchase Hershey products. Their chocolate sucks anyway.
How sad. I remember when Hershey was different. But then most companies have bought into the same practices, always under the guise of "remaing competitive". Too bad they don't practice the same policies when setting executive compensation. They might be better equipt to pay their labor more fairly while still reaping a profit.
You might mention many of the outside contractors are outside the country. Placing students from China, Eastern Europe ect. in what they think is a cultural exchange. In reality these kids pay 3k-6k to come to America and end up working long hours in a warehouse, forced to pay to live in company housing and paid $8 an hour. Some will snipe it is more than they make at home. Not when you are forced to pay overpriced company rent and travel expenses. Not when kids are lied to and sent to become cheap labor. Look this up on DemocracyNow! These kids have a novel solution, 'Give the jobs to local American who are out of work.'
Pretty amazing theory.
The CEO's and high-ups of these corporations are traitors to this country.
Thank you for detailing all of those actions. Everything you say is true, and recently reported in an expose by the Harrisburg Patriot-News regarding a number of foreign students from Ukraine. None of this would have come to anyone's attention had a number of students not conducted a protest outside of their place of employment. Your numbers are accurate. In addition they were required to work long hours of mandatory overtime. However, company rent is not accurate. The students rent apartments locally, but the prices are so high that it takes multiple paychecks to afford one apartment. They have little time and little funds left over to explore "America" and "American Culture". I consider this situation little more than human trafficing of wage slaves.
Hershey's uses child slave labor.
Good to know before Halloween:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-robbins/is-there-child-slavery-in_b_737737.html
Fair Trade chocolate is widely available now and it is not that expensive.
Exactly my point. Thanks for expanding on it.
Perhaps Amazon has taken as their motto the phrase that was used by the Japanese commandant in the classic 1957 film Bridge on the River Kwai when he advised the POWs:
Be happy in your work
And yet, if you are interested in books written by various authors published on CD, the links will take you straight to . . . Amazon. We'll see if this is the final straw that will make CD put their money where their mouth is and switch to independent publishers and bookstores. Somehow I doubt it - there is often a strange disconnect between what liberals say and what they do.
If CD has the same arrangement as some other entities on the web, Tom Dispatch for example, they get a cut of every sale directed to Amazon.
Getting a cut is not a very good reason to support a criminal enterprise. You couldn't use that argument in court, but you already now it, dkshaw, right? ;)
While Amazon likely operates within the limits of the law, just like many other corporate thugs, there are quite a few problems associated with the way they operate. These guys explain it better than I could:
http://bbpbooks.teachingforchange.org/whatswrongwithamazon
http://againstamazon.tumblr.com/
My comment was not a defense, but rather, a critique, or even an accusation.
I know, I know. Thanks.
I didn't mean to imply that you were justifying it.
BTW, I noticed that CD makes an exception for Linh Dinh - they provide a link to Seven Stories Press, instead of amazon, so apparently it can be done.
http://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCOI=58322100305410&fa=author&person_id=31
It would certainly be nice if CD practiced what they preach.
But this is a dilemma confronting all the left and progressive site maintainers. It's hard enough to break even without advertising and depending only on contributions. But then, this dilemma needs to be faced head on. I really wish there were some better alternatives to Amazon in this respect.
This makes me heartsick. And Troy Davis being murdered tonight. I just want to get the hell out of the US. Hershey is doing the same thing to workers in Penn. Is it this state that allows this to happen?
The economy is not doing all that great in PA, unless you are a reverse-carpet bag Texan or Okie working on a Marcellus shale drilling rig. I recently came back from a trip to Toronto. Increasingly, traveling between Pittsburgh and Toronto is like traveling between the first and third worlds. The poorest neighborhood in Toronto would be quite comfortably middle class by Pittsburgh standards.
AZ is gaga over Amazons new distribution facility, 250 jobs in Phx.... Hmmn why so close to the border????
There is a word that is entirely lacking in this discussion and the linked article - that word is "UNION." Without a union, the working conditions and pay will only get worse. The workings of a "free market" guarantee this. In the interview room, the bosses have have all the bargaining power and the workers reduced to supplication and competing against their brethren - "Hey boss! Hire me! I'm about to get evicted. I'll work for a dollar an hour less than that guy over there!
This is exactly why the corpora-fascists have been moving jobs to other countries, and promoted trade agreements with Asian and So. Amer. countries, and enabled illegal immigration....so they can bust unions, lower wages, and have American slaves do their bidding!!
The fact that it is 'unconscionable' for American companies to be doing this to Americans, in America ..... should finally bring home the point to many who haven't figured it out yet......the corpora-fascists and the banksters and the US Gov't that they own have no Conscience. They are all lying, greedy sociopaths.
This is an excellent piece of journalism. Although difficult to read through the temp workers' accounts, I did. So this is what it takes to put someone in the list of richest people in the world? From the story,
>>"Amazon's founder and CEO, Jeffrey Bezos, keeps climbing the ranks of the world's wealthiest people. Forbes magazine estimated his net worth to be $18.1 billion this year, making him the 30th wealthiest person in the world. That wealth is tied to the value of Amazon stock, which has grown about eightfold to nearly $240 per share over the past five years."<<
As I was reading through, the picture of Jeff Bezos sitting , somewhat smugly, in conversation with that big time suck-up Charlie Rose (a while ago) flashed through my mind. Bezos appeared so pleased with his genius as he was holding forth on why the "Kindle" was such a great thing to have. And Charlie Rose appeared pleased with himself that he could have this one-on-one conversations with one of the richest guys around. He asked Jeff Bezos about his other big, but somewhat secretive venture: developing launch capability for private space flights. But Bezos acted coy, wouldn't give much details, but obviously looked pleased with his ability to burn billions of dollars on this venture. From Wikipedia,
>>"Blue Origin is a privately funded aerospace company set up by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. ... Initially focused on sub-orbital spaceflight, the company has built and flown a testbed of its New Shepard spacecraft design at their Culberson County, Texas facility. ... Since its founding, the company — the motto of which is Latin for "Step-by-Step, Ferociously" — has been notoriously tight-lipped about its plans. Although the company was formally incorporated in 2000, its existence only became public in 2003, when Bezos started buying land in Texas and interested parties followed up on the purchases. This was a topic of some interest in local politics, and his rapid aggregation of the lots under a variety of whimsically named shell companies was called a "land grab"."<<
So this is what rich people do when they have all this money that wasn't taxed at fair rates: set up ventures to satisfy their ego and vanity or buy sports teams to make more money out of people's mind-boggling stupidity and penchant to cheer for their "local team" year after year. Another rich, vain businessman into private space flights is Richard Branson.
So now is it a crying need to develop private space flights so that people with the money to burn on these trips can show off to others about their most recent trip up there? As more and more people can now enjoy what was once available only to the super-rich, the super-rich are moving on to ever more expensive and destructive pursuits, and the damage to the environment from these mindless, totally pointless pursuits is simply criminal!
As "private enterprise" is pursuing this new avenue for milking the super-rich, many of whom accumulated their wealth because much of their income was not taxed fairly, entities such as NASA are starting to look like a ghost of their past. With the space shuttles retired the USA does not even have a transportation means to the International Space Station and they have to rely on the Russians for transport, even as they encircle Russia with a missile defense shield. Realizing the real possibility that at some point Roscosmos may stop acting as a taxi service to the ISS, there is already talk of leaving the Space Station completely unmanned for extended periods of time. What a shame!!!
I am not saying that the International Space Station is something that should be maintained and manned at any cost. But the problem of funding certain NASA programs could have been solved by taxing some of these big corporations a bit more, leaving less money in their CEOs' pockets to splurge on vain, boyhood fantasies, developing stuff to cater to other rich people's vanity. Somehow I feel that this is all related to how this money is acquired in the first place: from the overpriced ebook reader to the sweatshops to the ridiculous tax rates.
Workers complaining WTF. Looks like some more jobs are about to be moved out of the country. When China buys the USPS, they will make it profitable by delivering the mail on mopeds, paying low wage and no benefits. Next they will buy Amtrack, but they could only make that better.
I recall reading in the last year that Amazon's profit is equal to the amount they save in not paying sales tax in most states.
In other words, Amazon is a market failure and relies on support from the state.
Wow, if that is true, what an insane and cruel way to make a profit! By eating into the business of local sellers, driving them out of business eventually, exploiting temp. workers, selling totally overpriced stuff like the Kindle, benefit from not paying fair taxes, and then use some of this money by the CEO in his vain pursuit of developing private space travel!