Amazon, US Retail Workers Face Long Hrs., Poor Pay, High Anxiety on Black Friday
Workers face increases in work volume and demanding schedules, often without extra compensation during holidays.
Nicholas Oates started working at an Amazon fulfillment center in Kansas City, Missouri, in August last year, a few months before Amazon’s ‘peak season’ began in late November, when Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales kick off holiday shopping.
That year, 45% of all US online transactions on Thanksgiving Day and 54.9% of all online transactions on Black Friday were made through Amazon. On Cyber Monday, Amazon sold over 64m items, making up a significant portion of the record $6.59bn in total sales for the day. Amazon noted it was their biggest sales day in company history. This year, Amazon expanded their Black Friday sale to “Black Friday Deals Week”, encompassing Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and offering different sales on a daily basis.
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To help meet such demand during this year’s peak season, Oates, 25, said he was already working 60 hours a week. Oates explained that as the work volume increases, Amazon workers are not allowed to use personal time and vacation time use is discouraged. Amazon announced earlier this year a plan to hire 100,000 temporary employees for the 2018 holiday season, though that number has decreased from previous years. The reduction has been attributed to automation and an increased reliance on robots in Amazon fulfillment centers.
Oates says the robots on the warehouse floor often wind up knocking items to the ground, slowing down the work assembly and making it more difficult for workers to keep up picking items. “It’s a depressing work culture because I’ve seen countless people get chewed up and spit out at this job. One of the biggest, depressing realizations is after I survived peak season, I couldn’t recognize my department anymore. So many people were gone.”
Oates is currently homeless, living out of his car in the Amazon fulfillment center parking lot while working full-time. Oates said he’s struggling with depression. “My quality of sleep has been horrible, I’ve only been getting four to five hours of sleep a night tops,” he said. -READ MORE...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/nov/23/black-friday-retail-workers-face-long-hours-poor-pay-and-anxiety-through-the-roof
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