Amazon’s Clashes With Labor: Days of Conflict and Control

In current weeks, a heated dialogue about whether or not Amazon’s staff should urinate in bottles as a result of they don’t have any time to go to the lavatory — a stage of management that few fashionable firms would dare train — has raged on Twitter.

“Amazon is reorganizing the very nature of retail work — one thing that historically is bodily undemanding and has a big quantity of downtime — into one thing extra akin to a manufacturing facility, which by no means lets up,” stated Spencer Cox, a former Amazon employee who’s writing his Ph.D. thesis on the College of Minnesota about how the corporate is remodeling labor. “For Amazon, this isn’t about cash. That is about management of staff’ our bodies and each doable second of their time.”

Amazon didn’t have a remark for this story.

Indicators that Amazon is dealing with extra pushback in opposition to its management have began to pile up. In February, Lovenia Scott, a former warehouse employee for the corporate in Vacaville, Calif., accused Amazon in a lawsuit of having such an “immense quantity of work to be accomplished” that she and her colleagues didn’t get any breaks. Ms. Scott is in search of class-action standing. Amazon didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the go well with.

Final month, the California Labor Commissioner stated 718 supply drivers who labored for Inexperienced Messengers, a Southern California contractor for Amazon, had been owed $5 million in wages that by no means made it to their wallets. The drivers had been paid for 10-hour days, the labor commissioner stated, however the quantity of packages was so nice that they typically needed to work 11 or extra hours and via breaks.

Amazon stated it not labored with Inexperienced Messengers and would enchantment the choice. Inexperienced Messengers couldn’t be reached for remark.

An Amazon warehouse within the Canadian province of Ontario confirmed speedy unfold of Covid-19 in March. “Our investigation decided a closure was required to interrupt the chain of transmission,” stated Dr. Lawrence Loh, the regional medical officer. “We offered our advice to Amazon.” The corporate, he stated, “didn’t reply.” The well being officers ordered the employees to self-isolate, successfully shutting the power for 2 weeks. Amazon didn’t reply to a request for touch upon the scenario.

And 5 U.S. senators wrote a letter to the corporate final month demanding extra details about why it was equipping its supply vans with surveillance cameras that continually monitor the driving force. The know-how, the senators wrote, “raises vital privateness and employee oversight questions Amazon should reply.”