By Gabriel Princewill-
An exclusive investigation by the Sunday Mirror reveals the brutally tiresome conditions under which Amazon employees at Tilbury work on a daily basis.
The investigation, undertaken by Alan Selby, depicts the gruesome regime of hard labour that culminates in workers falling asleep on their feet during relentless 10 hour shifts. Many employees work from 7 am until 5.30 pm, or 8 am until 10.30 pm with just two and a half hours breaks throughout the day.
Alan Selby took up a job at Amazon in Tilbury to gain a first hand experience of what is would be like to be an employee of the most prosperous companies in the world today. Selby’s experience was far from gratifying. He reports that staff were under constant pressure to deal with a package every 30 seconds. He described staff there as just cattle – there to serve robots’ . A far cry from his customary work as an investigative journalist, Selby eventually became depressed after putting his body through the monotonous routine that Amazon employees must become accustomed to if they want to be able to pay their bills. Employees spend most of their day scanning electrical or none items which are put into a yellow pod until it is full. When the pod is full, Amazon robots refereed to as ‘drives’ come to the aid of employees to supply them with more pods.
One Amazon employee told the eye of media.com ” we spend time scanning items all day with a hand held scanner to read the bar codes, and sometimes the bar codes are in bad conditions on do not scan. Problem solvers come to help, but sometimes the situation repeats itself”, the anonymous employee said. We scan the items first into the computers then into the pod. As we are scanning , people come in trolleys to give us more items. It can be quite boring”.
WEALTH
Considering the depth of Amazon’s wealth, the dire conditions its employees are subjected to on a daily basis is terrible. Their work regime is overly rigorous The eye of media.com has also been covertly speaking to employees there who complain of tight break periods, faulty computers which are temperamental, and a lengthy working regime for employees paid £8.20 an hour , except for those working night shifts, who get £10.20 an hour. The eye of media.com has also been conducting a covert investigation following numerous complaints about below par working conditions, but nothing as extensive as that undertaken by Selby under the auspices of the always daring and innovative Sunday Mirror publication.
Tilbury warehouse is sophisticated in many ways. They have multiple managers, some of whom pace around their employees to offer a helping hand to those struggling with their tasks. Many of their staff are quietly disgruntled, some going as far as posting critical reviews about the company online to put others off. Many wake up very early to make an early start, and the eye of media. com heard that a number have left in protests to the long hard conditions there. Some employees told the eye of media.com they were so far content with the conditions there, but strangely none of the half a dozen or so people we spoke to was prepared to attach their names to any quotations in relation to this piece. Only one gentleman who actually tipped us off about the Tilbury site was prepared to go on record with his story. We feature his full story on this site tomorrow, Tuesday.
Selby from the Sunday Mirror provides an unedifying account about his experience with Amazon in Tilbury.
”physically I am no slouch – yet my body felt drained every day.
My blood pressure and resting heart rate both rose from the stresses of the job.
One silver lining as I started was that working as a picker might be good exercise.
But Amazon has recognised humans are the least efficient part of the operation, so in Tilbury the robots take over.
At every turn it felt like the human staff were reduced to livestock, existing only to service the machines
The repetitive, monotonous work at its ironically named “fulfilment centre” did me no favours mentally, either
In the early weeks I was depressed, until my brain switched off.
Amazon does not have to enforce a 10-hour day, it could stretch its 40-hour week over five days and add more staff.
Extra staff may let it reduce personal targets to lessen the load. But it makes more money by treating its workers as expendable commodities”.
Amazon is run by wealthy individuals and should exhibit a higher degree of consideration in their dealings with employees. They ought to remember that they are not their slaves, but there to enhance their ostensibly ambitious and honourable business objectives. Employees are not there to be slaves of affluent top executives who call the shots at the Tilbury branch of Amazon