This is an excellent piece on why we should think twice about buy from Amazon. And it so happens that today is Jeff Bezos’ birthday. He was born on January 12, 1964.
The article appeared in Saturday’s edition of The Irish Times
Blánaid ni Bhraonáin
Amazon loves consumers, and consumers love Amazon. The company reported sales of more than $386 billion (€341 billion) in 2020 – a staggering 38 per cent more than the previous year.
It began as an online bookshop in the early days of the internet, but its founder Jeff Bezos – now the world’s richest man – didn’t stop after fundamentally altering the publishing industry, creating a best-selling e-reader and buying up competitors such as Book Depository and AbeBooks. Now Amazon is “the everything store”, offering a near-infinite array of products delivered directly to our homes.
It can afford to undercut competitors – it has arranged its affairs so that despite €44 billion in sales in Europe in 2020, its Luxembourg-based unit recorded a €1.2 billion loss, meaning its tax bill is zero. And it knows far, far more about its customers than any analogue business could – not just their online shopping patterns, but also through the information gathered through Prime Video streaming accounts, smart speakers and doorbells, and a vast array of other products.
The company announced that it would open its first Irish “fulfilment centre” in 2022 – a 58,530sq m (630,000sq ft) warehouse in Baldonnell Business Park, processing, packing and sending items to customers here and across Europe. A second delivery station serving Dublin and the surrounding areas will add “over 20 permanent jobs, in addition to dozens of driver opportunities for Amazon Logistics’ delivery service partners and Amazon Flex delivery partners”. The chief executive of IDA Ireland, Martin Shanahan, commented: “It is great to see Ireland contin- uing to attract investment and playing such an important part in the future plans of this global company. Amazon’s ongoing commitment to Ireland is most welcome.”
But how Amazon runs its warehouses in the United States suggests that this development is anything but welcome. It is infamous for demanding a punishing pace and monitoring workers down to the second. Its surveillance systems have doubled as a way to disrupt unionisation, since every interaction between workers can be tracked. Last month, a vote against unionisation at an Alabama warehouse was overturned by the National Labour Relations Board (NLRB) because Amazon encouraged workers to post their votes in a mailbox in full view of security cameras. Injured workers report that it is a struggle to get accommodations or medical leave and the company has faced criticism for its treatment of pregnant employees. In response to criticism, the company agreed to let its warehouse employees more easily organise in the workplace as part of a nationwide settlement with the NLRB just before Christmas.
You might hope that better legal protection for workers and unions will prevent Amazon using the same tactics here. But these are not just a symptom of US law’s failure to protect employees. Even in the American context, Amazon is exceptional, and not just in its delivery times. Last year a report by the Strategic Organising Centre, a coalition of four labour unions, revealed that Amazon warehouse injury rates were twice that of the warehousing industry and 80 per cent higher than the industry average for serious injuries in 2020. Another study of six Amazon warehouses in Minnesota found similarly higher rates of injury.
When a former worker at a Baltimore warehouse complained that he was dismissed due to legally protected organising, an attorney for Amazon argued that firings for “productivity issues” were a common practice and that at least 300 full-time workers were dismissed for this reason in a 13-month period – in a facility with about 2,500 full-time workers.
Last year Amazon announced that it now averages “time off task” (the metric used to track employee performance) over a longer period, but monitoring every second of warehouse workers’ performance is still central to its business model.
The delivery stage is equally grim. Amazon had to apologise last April for denying reports that delivery drivers were forced to urinate in bottles to meet strict quotas. Last month, a tornado destroyed an Amazon warehouse in Illinois, killing six delivery drivers who took shelter there shortly before the storm hit, raising questions about the company’s safety policy. Amazon defended its safety record and said it was examining what happened. Delivery subcontractors in the United Kingdom have also reported long shifts, onerous targets and accidents caused by the furious pace of work.
The company consistently defends its practices. But knowing the human cost of just this section of Amazon’s supply chain, how can we expect low-paid workers (Amazon boasts that all workers here will be paid “at least €12 an hour”) to do such physically and mentally demanding work just so that we can get our stuff slightly quicker and with minimal effort? The vast majority of products Amazon offers are not necessities. Most of us could buy those products elsewhere or not at all. Even during the pandemic, helping to fill Amazon’s coffers is not the only alternative to shopping in person. Plenty of small- and medium-sized Irish businesses offer online retail, if we are willing to click through a few more screens and wait a little longer for our packages. Let’s opt out of the instant-gratification mindset and make a stand for decent work and business that benefits our communities in 2022.
Blánaid ní Bhraonáin is a recent law graduate.
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