Amazon Chews Through The Average Worker In 8 months. They Need A Union

[appalachiablue]

- The Guardian, Feb. 4, 2022. Amazon has earned the dubious distinction of replacing Walmart as the nation’s fiercest anti-union employer. - Some labor experts see an anti-union method to Amazon’s stress-o-matic madness: that it intentionally wants its workers to stay only a short time because its workers will then conclude that they won’t be there long enough to make it worthwhile to fight for a union. -

It doesn’t take much imagination to realize that Amazon warehouse workers would benefit from having a union. The average Amazon warehouse worker leaves within just eight months – that’s an unmistakable sign that Amazon’s jobs are unpleasant, to put it kindly, and that many Amazon workers quickly realize they hate working there because of the stress, breakneck pace, constant monitoring and minimal rest breaks. Indeed, experts on the future of work often voice concern that Amazon’s vaunted algorithms and technologies treat Amazon’s warehouse workers like mindless, unfeeling robots – having them do the same thing hour after hour after hour.

And then there are the endless tales from Amazon warehouse workers that the company is so stingy about break time that they often don’t have enough time to go back and forth to the bathroom without getting demerits for exceeding their allotted daily break time. It’s hard to believe that here in the 21st century, one of the nation’s biggest, most respected companies makes it so hard for many of its workers to pee. In this way, working at Amazon resembles working at a poultry processing plant, where workers often wear adult diapers to work because their bosses frequently tell them they can’t take a break right now from cutting all those drumsticks and wings to go to the bathroom.

Amazon workers continue to endure all this pain and strain even though Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s founder and the world’s richest human being, has said he is committed to making Amazon “Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work”. Evidently Bezos fails to realize that any company whose workers leave after eight months on average is light years from being Earth’s Best Employer. As for being Earth’s Safest Place to Work, Bezos shouldn’t insult workers’ or the public’s intelligence by making such a claim, considering the rate of serious injuries at Amazon’s warehouses in 2020 was nearly twice that at other warehouses across the US...

- More,
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/04/amazon-chews-through-the-average-worker-in-eight-months-they-need-a-union
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- Also: Share the profits! Why US businesses must return to rewarding workers properly, Robert Reich. The economy is booming and corporate profits are huge, but American wages still stagnate. History provides the answer. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/29/share-the-profits-us-business-workers-economy-wages

[SunSeeker]

1. I know a woman who works at an Amazon warehouse.

She has to put together people's grocery orders (Amazon Pantry). Half the time she is a freezer or refrigerator pulling food put. And she is always rushing because she is always being timed. It is absolutely miserable work. She's been there 6 months. As soon as she finds something better she's out of there, but she says it's better than waiting tables.

[appalachiablue]

2. I hope she finds something better, just reading about

conditions at Amazon is disturbing. A few months is all I could take. The workers deserve a medal, a union and more.

[Throck]

3. Nice to hear from an Amazon worker first hand.

They are so overdue and ripe for a union.

The warehouses are popping up left and right, multiple in the mid size cities. Can't believe the size of the delivery fleet.

[Midnight Writer]

4. Average turnover at McDonalds is 3 months. This is a widespread problem.

Management sees workers as interchangeable units. They no longer value or reward experience, knowledge, or initiative. In fact, they disparage it.

Seems foolish to me. If you have an experienced, reliable, hard-working employee, why would you not try to keep that employee?