By Gabriel Princewill-
A former employee of Tilbury Amazon who was sacked from his job has lambasted the company for slavery regime.
Inside the Tilbury Amazon depot
40 year old Stephen Smith from Thorpe Bay, Essex, has criticised the company’s insensitivity to its workers who he says the company treats like sxxx. Smith who worked there for 6 weeks before being sacked, was indignant in his run down of the company’s operations. He derided the managers there as ”snobbish and stuck up’‘, ”very unfriendly and unhelpful”, in a damning indictment against one of the world’s most lucrative organisations. ” A few were friendly, like Dan Carpenter was friendly, but many of them were rude and up their own axx” he said , as he waved off all anonymity in expressing his grievance with the firm.
”This Asian woman who was a manager was very rude and snobbish, I didn’t like her. Smith says he was fired for making a few mistakes , despite the fact Amazon’s computers were often dodgy. Bemoaning his experience in the organisation where he had been during a Sunday Mirror undercover investigation by Alan Selby, Smith sounds resentful and dismayed with Amazon.
”I wonder if it is worth me being there in the first place. I had to pay £12.60 a day to get to and from work, I had to travel 30 miles from Thorpe Bay to work, it was a nightmare”
Smith hailed the Sunday Mirror Investigation in which Sunday Mirror Investigative journalist, Selby, took up a job with the company for 5 weeks in order to gain a first hand experience of what it was like to work for Amazon. Selby was horrified by his observation of Amazon employees falling asleep on their feet, and said he found the experience tiresome and depressing.
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SLAVISH
” I think the Sunday Mirror did very well to expose the slavish conditions Amazon employees are put through, working for several hours for insufficient pay. We were used like machines, in fact machines recover much quicker because they don’t suffer wear and tear like humans do. Talking extra fast in emotive fashion, Smith said he felt the pay did not match up to the physical demands of the job.
”I had to work from 8 in the morning until 6.30pm in the evening. It was costing me £12.50 pound a day to get the train from Thorpe Bay to Tilbury. You had to constantly scan items unto a pod and when the pod was full, a robot like machine would come to assist you with the rest. I was earning 308 pounds after tax, but spending £50. 40 a week. This meant I ended up with just over £250 pounds a week for all that hard work”.
A tough working regime not for the faint hearted, employees engage in hours of monotonous lifting and scanning of items unto pods. The aggrieved fired employee told THE EYE OF MEDIA.COM that he has been going of his way to discredit a company he felt had fired him unjustly.
”They just didn’t seem that bothered that people were complaining of very short breaks and long hours of work. They didn’t even have a proper complaint procedure except a blackboard of complaints for people to complain about. People were always complaining, but nothing was being done about it. One of the managers promised to consider given us longer breaks, but it seems he was saying it just to have a laugh. I had heard a lot of people had left the job because they couldn’t hack it anymore, but I thought I would try and stick in with it for longer”
COMPUTER ERRORS
Berating the computers used by Amazon, the aggrieved former employee said they were prone to several errors. He also detests the fact he was sacked for errors he attributes to the inadequacy of those Amazon’s computers.
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”They said I made too many errors, but gloss over the fact their computers were dodgy and always going wrong. You had some of the managers walking around with a pad to assist when errors occurred, but the errors would occur again. Some computers didn’t have as much errors as other computers, but most computers were faulty.
”Other employees made errors too, but they sacked me because they say I made more errors. There was no sympathy for the fact that I had been their slave for 6 long weeks, I’m not being funny, but an 18 year old could earn the same amount (in reference to his net wage of £258weekly)sitting behind the tills in a bank as a cashier or serving drinks in a bar”.
SMALL BREAKS
Smith further says he was told by the employees of Amazon that he would have a 5 months trial period, but was given the boot after just 6 weeks. ” They said I was taking breaks that were too long, but their breaks were too short”
‘We only get two half an hour breaks, I think for the hard work we do, we should get paid £10 an hour. Those who work night shifts should get more than £10 an hour”.
Amazon boasts one of the wealthiest owners in the world. Its CEO was invited to a dinner with U.S President, Donald Trump. at the White House. Amazon is a highly prosperous organisation. The company has undertaken a number of commercial projects tipped to yield very attractive remunerations; cementing their reputation for entrepreneurial growth in its delivery of goods and services.
When Amazon Tilbury was first opened, the company circulated a press release announcing its expansion and creation of jobs for the unemployed. Many have responded to the call, but lots have walked out. THE EYE OF MEDIA.COM presented Mr.Smith’s complaints in full to Amazon, and a spokesperson said:
”Amazon provides a safe and positive workplace with competitive pay and benefits from day one. We are proud to have been able to create thousands of new permanent roles in our UK fulfillment centres in recent years. One of the reasons we’ve been able to attract so many people to join us is that we offer great jobs and a positive work environment with opportunities for growth.
”As with nearly all companies, we expect a certain level of performance from our associates. Productivity targets are set objectively, based on previous performance levels achieved by our workforce. Associate performance is measured and evaluated over a long period of time as we know that a variety of things could impact the ability to meet expectations in any given day or hour. We support people who are not performing to the levels expected with dedicated coaching to help them improve”.
featured image provided by: The Sunday Mirror
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