Skip to main content

Amazon 'regime' making British staff physically and mentally ill, says union

Workers at Amazon’s distribution centre in Swansea.
Staff at Amazon’s UK operation have developed physical and mental illnesses because of the “regimes” they work under, the GMB trade union has warned.
Employees at the online retailer’s distribution centres across the UK were under pressure to be an “above-average Amazon robot”, the GMB’s lead officer for Amazon, Elly Baker, told the Times.
Baker said: “It’s hard, physical work, but the constant stress of being monitored and never being able to drop below a certain level of performance is harsh. You can’t be a normal person. You have to be an above-average Amazon robot all the time.”
Baker said some employees were suffering from musculoskeletal problems, work-related stress and anxiety. “We’re seeing this specifically because of the regimes they work under.”
Amazon UK has been approached for a comment on GMB’s claims. Employees’ working and personal lives were tracked and quantified, with their movements, productivity and successes or failures being constantly measured, while managers were forced to rate their employees and fire their lowest-scoring workers, according to the article.
Instant replies to emails were expected, even if sent in the middle of the night or the weekends, and employees were apparently encouraged to secretly funnel their back-stabbing or praise through Amazon’s “Anytime Feedback Tool”.
The interviews described Amazon’s atmosphere as one that saw employees actively competing against each other, where the fully committed who were prepared to make sacrifices to get ahead thrived, while others were stamped on.
More than 7,000 staff work at Amazon’s UK distribution centres in Hemel Hempstead, Milton Keynes, Swansea, Peterborough, Rugeley near Stafford, Doncaster, Dunfermline and Gourock in Inverclyde.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/18/amazon-regime-making-british-staff-physically-and-mentally-ill-says-union

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Best IELTS and English language training institutions in Hyderabad

IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System. As the name implies it is basically an English test for testing the proficiency of the language in an individual.  Training for IELTS can be taken to pass the IELTS exam or to develop good english language skills. I am giving the training institute addresses for Hyderabad. The test system is jointly managed by the British Council,IDP education ltd and University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations and more than 1 million candidates are taking the exam all over the world. The test has two versions : 1. Academic 2. General training Academic  version is for people who plan to continue their higher education by enrolling in universities in countries like US,UK,Australia,Canada,New Zealand etc.The academic institutions in these countries consider the IELTS score as a criteria for the admission process. General training is mostly for immigration purposes in countries like Australia,New Zealand,Canada etc. It may ...
9 comments
Read more

Communist party launches 'China Operating System' to oust iOS and Android

hina officials have launched a national operating system in an attempt to take back control of the country’s computer market from American companies such as Google and Apple. The software has been in development for more than a year, but has been released at a crucial time with revelations about US-led surveillance sparking fears over the integrity of American-designed software. Known simply as the China Operating System, or COS, the software can run on PCs, tablets and smartphones and has been based on the open-source Linux operating system. Chinese media say that the OS has been created “entirely independently” in order to provide better localization for a range of features – from Chinese-language keyboards, to integration with the country’s banks. At the launch of the event, one of the developers involved with the project reportedly criticized Western software , saying that Apple’s iOS was too closed, that Google’s Android OS suffered from fragmentation (ie, too many versi...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to use home loans most effectively for tax benefits

1) Deduction on interest: If you are paying EMIs for a home loan you took to buy a house, the interest component in the EMI can be claimed as deduction. You must be both an owner and a co-borrower (in the loan) to claim tax benefits. This deduction can be claimed starting the year in which the construction of the house is completed. Suppose the construction of your house was completed on August 30, 2014, you can claim deduction for interest for the entire 12 months in financial year 2014-15. So every year a maximum of Rs. 2 lakh can be claimed for a house that you use for your own residence. If your house is rented, the entire interest for the year can be claimed as deduction. The interest payments for the year shall result in a loss under the head 'income from house property'. This loss can be adjusted against in the same year against other heads of income in your income tax return including salary. Therefore, it reduces your total taxable income and the tax you pay thereon. A...
2 comments
Read more