Amazon Denies Accusations Of 'Brutal' Worker Treatment

Jeff Bezos is fired up over claims that Amazon is "brutal" to its workers. The only thing that strikes me as odd is that, if the story is true, you'd think a lot more people would have come forward by now.

The article doesn't describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day," Bezos wrote on Sunday. "I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.

The Amazonians he works with everyday are butt kissers that fog his view of what really goes on in the rest of the workforce.
He should do an "Undercover Boss" into the white collar and warehouse and really see how it is. Then he can talk.
But oh well, business is business and nothing will change except for more automation to get rid of the pesky complaining human workers

I'm shocked. Shocked, I say! (that he was able to deny it without giggling, that is)

Just reading the company's codified values, it's pretty clear this is all intentional. A little PR now to muddy the waters, then get back to flogging people.

the-one1 said:

He should do an "Undercover Boss" into the white collar and warehouse and really see how it is. Then he can talk.

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If you're referring to the show, it would be an utter waste of time. That show is nothing but a flea circus in which the people that the "Boss" interacts with is carefully chosen, and will specifically have a "human interest" story so that they can "fix" whatever is going on in that employee's life and pull at some heart strings.

Worse yet, I find that show insulting from a different level. Every time at the end of each episode, they always present the boss in front of a HUGE number of "employees" (with tons of company logos plastered everywhere) and then they parade the "boss" out as if to say:
"WORSHIP ME PEONS!! FOR I HAVE WALKED AMONGST YOU. I SAY THAT I NOW KNOW WHAT YOU DEAL WITH ON A DAILY BASIS, AND YOU SHOULD BELIEVE IT, FOR I HAVE SPENT AN ENTIRE 2 HOURS WITH A FEW PEOPLE. AND LO, THE CORPORATE CULTURE WILL NOT CHANGE AT ALL! FOR YOUR SAFETY AND QUALITY OF LIFE IS SECONDARY TO THE QUARTERLY STATEMENT. THOUGH YOU THOUGHT THIS WOULD BE A CHANGING MOMENT FOR THE COMPANY, IT IS MERELY PROMOTION. NOW BOW BEFORE YOUR BOSS! BOW YA SHITS!"

If it were not for the show, it would be just as pointless, as the people that arrange for the whole thing would, again, carefully select the people in which the CEO had contact. Because it's not like a VP can call a warehouse manager and say "Hey - so there's gonna be a dude starting next Monday. He's a totally normal guy, honest." and not raise some eyebrows.

I was an Amazon insider for 8 years. This article actually understates the brutal treatment of workers there. I'll chime in with my two hundred thousand cents later, when I'm not at work and can discuss it at length.

psimitry said:

If you're referring to the show, it would be an utter waste of time. *snip*.

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True. I loath that show as much as I loath ghost pepper oil in my eyes. What I should have said was for him to walk in their shoes to really see how the little guys is treated by those appointed below him to run the company.

I didn't know Amazon was a sweatshop

Steve said:

The only thing that strikes me as odd is that, if the story is true, you'd think a lot more people would have come forward by now.

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And endanger NDAs, business partnerships and the like? Don't be ridiculous!

States were groveling to bring those jobs and give them sales tax benefits.

I wouldn't mind if Amazon closed the local warehouse in my state (NY) so then we could go back to no sales tax for Amazon purchases

Of course people have come forth. Look at glassdoor or even on reddit where there are ex-Amazon workers. They typically don't have a good outlook on it. But I don't really blame them on this. The LinkedIn post made a point that they did hire outsiders. That's their main problem. The other companies, such as Google or Apple, love to focus on college hires where they can mold their mind, rather than having a person who has experience see a company for what it is. I once worked with a company in the Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For, and I was old when I started in my late 20s. It also was the most miserable years of my life. Amazon just has an indoctrination problem (or lack thereof), as I doubt they're the only tech company with terrible life conditions.

Also, sadly, we live in a world where you can't talk bad about prior places you worked, as it can come back to hurt you. And in the article where he mentions talking to HR? HR is someplace which should be avoided like the plague if you value your job. They're there to protect the company, not the employee.

polonyc2 said:

I wouldn't mind if Amazon closed the local warehouse in my state (NY) so then we could go back to no sales tax for Amazon purchases

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There has always sales tax, you're just being a shit tax payer and not reporting it

Cyraxx said:

There has always sales tax, you're just being a shit tax payer and not reporting it

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you're not reporting it either...stop lying...and yesterday you ran a Stop sign and didn't report it...day before that you jaywalked

Cyraxx said:

There has always sales tax, you're just being a shit tax payer and not reporting it

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Should I order a box of rocks and have amazon prime two-day ship them to your glass house?

It was never actually a secret, the NYT just brought it into the mainstream light. All you need to do is take a look at the glassdoor reviews I read a while job searching a while back. Plenty of flat-out negative reviews but it still had a relatively OK rating (significantly over 3.0), but to really get good info about a company, take a look at the listed CONs on the "positive" reviews.

Almost every single "positive" review was from white collar people that cared about nothing but money, recommended the place for paying white collar workers so well, but casually mentioned that every waking second of their life was dedicated to Amazon and people who didn't dedicate every waking second of their life to Amazon would be on the chopping block quick, so it was a "great atmosphere for competitive, hard workers."

I think it's great that with automation and technology making the basic necessities of life so easy and cheap to generate, companies around the world are still finding ways to create slave-like conditions for people. And, of course, that these necessities aren't really priced that way.

And that people, with all of these conditions met, will work 120 hours a week to insure a telly-tubby gets to some whiner post-haste.

Newegg has a better website, doesn't charge sales tax, and fights intellectual property trolls in the courts. After hearing how Amazon treats their employees, I know where I'm taking my business.

Cmdrmonkey said:

Newegg has a better website, doesn't charge sales tax, and fights intellectual property trolls in the courts. After hearing how Amazon treats their employees, I know where I'm taking my business.

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To Amazon naturally.

I heard that Jeff Bezos is Satan himself. Just look at those soulless eyes and what he names his devices.

GearChoices said:

It was never actually a secret, the NYT just brought it into the mainstream light. All you need to do is take a look at the glassdoor reviews I read a while job searching a while back. Plenty of flat-out negative reviews but it still had a relatively OK rating (significantly over 3.0), but to really get good info about a company, take a look at the listed CONs on the "positive" reviews.

Almost every single "positive" review was from white collar people that cared about nothing but money, recommended the place for paying white collar workers so well, but casually mentioned that every waking second of their life was dedicated to Amazon and people who didn't dedicate every waking second of their life to Amazon would be on the chopping block quick, so it was a "great atmosphere for competitive, hard workers."

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NYT didn't bring anything to light. This isn't an Amazon problem, it's a white collar problem.

It's been a gradual slow process of changing over the years with things such as:
1. Going from a desktop computer at work to a laptop that you take home everything. This began the whole "Checking email at home" and working when you're bored, or if you need to work late on something that is due soon.
2. Now we are transitioning the phone into our lives. What was once hanging on our wall at home is now in our hands 24/7. The white collar work is making new ways to keep your work in your hands at all times. Like the article says, you could have received an email at 6PM and then a phone call at 8PM asking why you didn't respond.

Again, this isn't just Amazon.

Unless our government brings back overtime for anything > 40 hours (REGARDLESS of if people paid by time or salary), then it's only going to get worse. I shudder to think of the expectations coming in the next 10 years.

One time, at an all hands meeting, when Jeff Bezos was faced with the question "With so many organizations offering better salary and benefits while requiring less time in the office, what is Amazon's plan for retaining its workers?"

His answer? "Well, they can fucking choose to work somewhere else if they aren't happy here."

That right there says it all. And yes, he did in fact use the word "fuck" when addressing his employees during the all hands meeting.

Cyraxx said:

... Unless our government brings back overtime for anything > 40 hours (REGARDLESS of if people paid by time or salary), then it's only going to get worse. I shudder to think of the expectations coming in the next 10 years.

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That isn't going to happen. The Right will never allow this to happen. That would 'hurt the economy'.
Corporations have already found a workaround to this; they make someone a 'manager', who does everything else a regular employee does, and gets to work all week without a break - working in excess of 60 hours a week - but only gets paid a salary without burdening his employers with overtime pay. Voilà. Problem solved!

Amazon - i.e. Bezos - has been so impressed with the efficiency of Chinese factories that they decided to import the work ethics to the US. Now, you can not only buy the goods made in China, but you get to work, just like in China. Soon, you will enjoy similar incomes as do workers in China. This is the flip side of globalization people didn't tell you about.
Most optimists would have suggested, through globalization, people in hard up countries, including China, would be lifted to modern standards of living. Instead, realism will make us see, that in fact it will be the opposite; gradually, the western economies will start introducing 3rd world countries' ethics and conditions, with their salaries to the West. Yiiiepeee!

Cyraxx said:

NYT didn't bring anything to light. This isn't an Amazon problem, it's a white collar problem.

It's been a gradual slow process of changing over the years with things such as:
1. Going from a desktop computer at work to a laptop that you take home everything. This began the whole "Checking email at home" and working when you're bored, or if you need to work late on something that is due soon.
2. Now we are transitioning the phone into our lives. What was once hanging on our wall at home is now in our hands 24/7. The white collar work is making new ways to keep your work in your hands at all times. Like the article says, you could have received an email at 6PM and then a phone call at 8PM asking why you didn't respond.

Again, this isn't just Amazon.

Unless our government brings back overtime for anything > 40 hours (REGARDLESS of if people paid by time or salary), then it's only going to get worse. I shudder to think of the expectations coming in the next 10 years.

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This is absolutely true, but the sheer volume and intensity of the practices at Amazon puts it "among the leaders" of bad, unethical, anti-worker practices and culture. It's one of the worst, despite the vast majority of companies already being bad and getting worse. But it's not just a white collar problem. It's a mass degeneration across all types of jobs, it's just different jobs are degenerating in different ways.

aShrubbery! said:

That isn't going to happen. The Right will never allow this to happen. That would 'hurt the economy'.
Corporations have already found a workaround to this; they make someone a 'manager', who does everything else a regular employee does, and gets to work all week without a break - working in excess of 60 hours a week - but only gets paid a salary without burdening his employers with overtime pay. Voilà. Problem solved!

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The right is a minority in this country - they have power, but their power alone does not stop progressive laws from being passed and enforced. There are over 200 million eligible voters in this country. And only a small amount of the half that do vote end up voting in the mid-terms. Let's not even talk about state/local elections where it is even worse. Half of them do not vote and the other half vote for the top corporation-friendly candidates every election.

I mean look at this election...we have Hillary Clinton, one of the most pro-corporate democrats to ever exist (if you count only real democrats and not republicans that pretend/pretended to be democrats, like Lieberman), and unless something really big happens, she is already the nominee of the democratic party. This is in spite of the fact that the race has the strongest truly progressive candidate in recent decades, Bernie Sanders.

Remember, Bill Clinton was the one that championed and passed NAFTA, which put American workers in direct competition with Mexican workers, in a country that had zero health/safety/labor/quality/ethical/environmental regulations. Ross Perot spoke out against it and said that millions of blue collar jobs will be lost in America if it was passed, and no one listened to him, it happened, and democrats still praise Bill Clinton today.

And then the "left" is constantly shooting themselves in the foot with moderates (yes, the right does as well, but if the left did not do it too, they would actually have a lot more of a chance to win) with a slew of various anarchistic, reverse discrimination, and nanny state policies and positions.

This country would certainly be better off without the Right, but there is nothing stopping it from changing even with that minority in the country. Its just that most people, democrats included, are apathetic as long as they got a cigarette, recreational drug, prescription drug, alcoholic drink, or sports game to get them through each day. Not saying all of those things are bad if used correctly and/or in moderation, but that isn't the way 99% of Americans do it.

aShrubbery! said:

Amazon - i.e. Bezos - has been so impressed with the efficiency of Chinese factories that they decided to import the work ethics to the US. Now, you can not only buy the goods made in China, but you get to work, just like in China. Soon, you will enjoy similar incomes as do workers in China. This is the flip side of globalization people didn't tell you about.
Most optimists would have suggested, through globalization, people in hard up countries, including China, would be lifted to modern standards of living. Instead, realism will make us see, that in fact it will be the opposite; gradually, the western economies will start introducing 3rd world countries' ethics and conditions, with their salaries to the West. Yiiiepeee!

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Every word of this though, is 100% truth.

Shocked lol sure... it's not like amazon was founded on shady principals like tax avoidance or anything.

Its amazing what some people consider acceptable working conditions. Reading the NYT article disgusted me. As I read it, I imagined myself in the same situation and how I would react. I would have been fired about 12 times over the course of that article.

Basic example:

1. Put in an honest 8:00 AM to 4:30 shift, taking all the breaks I am entitled to, but no more.

2. Go home, enjoy my life. Don't answer e-mails, company cell phone is turned off in the drawer.

3. Go into work the next day thinking everything is fine, and I'm fired.

That's pretty much how that article reads. Ridiculous.

Bootleg Usher said:

Its amazing what some people consider acceptable working conditions. Reading the NYT article disgusted me. As I read it, I imagined myself in the same situation and how I would react. I would have been fired about 12 times over the course of that article.

Basic example:

1. Put in an honest 8:00 AM to 4:30 shift, taking all the breaks I am entitled to, but no more.

2. Go home, enjoy my life. Don't answer e-mails, company cell phone is turned off in the drawer.

3. Go into work the next day thinking everything is fine, and I'm fired.

That's pretty much how that article reads. Ridiculous.

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It comes down to the simple fact of who has the power. We don't, corporations do. You should be happy you have a job. In fact, you should devote more time to your job than your own family. If you don't like your job, you're easily replaceable. Thousands of other applicants are just dying to take your place. Then you also have the H-1Bs who also need that job to stay in the USA. And there are plenty of them. They'll work longer hours because they're afraid of losing their job. That means those who aren't foreigners have to work just as long to make sure to keep up so they're not fired. I mean, who are you really going to go to? You're not going to create a company which can compete with Amazon. And the other tech companies aren't exactly paragons of work-life balance either. The fact is, we're cattle, and the companies know this and exploit it for everything they can.

Nytegard said:

It comes down to the simple fact of who has the power. We don't, corporations do. You should be happy you have a job. In fact, you should devote more time to your job than your own family. If you don't like your job, you're easily replaceable. Thousands of other applicants are just dying to take your place. Then you also have the H-1Bs who also need that job to stay in the USA. And there are plenty of them. They'll work longer hours because they're afraid of losing their job. That means those who aren't foreigners have to work just as long to make sure to keep up so they're not fired. I mean, who are you really going to go to? You're not going to create a company which can compete with Amazon. And the other tech companies aren't exactly paragons of work-life balance either. The fact is, we're cattle, and the companies know this and exploit it for everything they can.

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They also work longer hours, because they want to and all of my friends from college are pretty far up the food chain (as in multi-million dollar homes).

That said, if Amazon is that bad, the key is to survive long enough to get another job and don't look back. In fairness, if you started at Amazon 10 years ago, you could have gotten options at 30 bucks (it was a dog back then) and they'd be worth 13-14x, but will they have that type of growth over the next few years?

Those types of hours are worthwhile if it turns you into a multimillionaire. If it doesn't, I'm not so sure. I don't care how much I love a job, at some point, I want to have a life beyond work...and I definitely want to SLEEP!

Cmdrmonkey said:

Newegg has a better website, doesn't charge sales tax, and fights intellectual property trolls in the courts. After hearing how Amazon treats their employees, I know where I'm taking my business.

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They both charge sales tax when required. Newegg isn't above federal/state laws. Never had any issues with either and both have good customer service, but Amazon sells more than electronics. I'll continue to use Amazon but I am certainly not very happy about their work environment and I wouldn't apply there.

nilepez said:

They also work longer hours, because they want to and all of my friends from college are pretty far up the food chain (as in multi-million dollar homes).

That said, if Amazon is that bad, the key is to survive long enough to get another job and don't look back. In fairness, if you started at Amazon 10 years ago, you could have gotten options at 30 bucks (it was a dog back then) and they'd be worth 13-14x, but will they have that type of growth over the next few years?

Those types of hours are worthwhile if it turns you into a multimillionaire. If it doesn't, I'm not so sure. I don't care how much I love a job, at some point, I want to have a life beyond work...and I definitely want to SLEEP!

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http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-ranked-by-turnover-rates-2013-7

They don't survive at those companies long enough. And while job hopping is notorious for west coast programmer, it's not just about people quitting. Many of those companies purposely fire employees after a couple years to keep salaries down along with not having to pay out stock, etc. Also, they can work the employees long hours with a churn and burn mentality. And it's not just Amazon though. It's part of the tech industries' dark secret.

A lot of people go into software development for the money, not the passion. They care only about the money, and they move out as soon as possible. But at the same time in my opinion, this leads to a lot of poor quality code. And it's not just about unrealistic deadlines. I look back at code I had wrote when I was out of college, back when I thought I was a hotshot or whatever, and I cringe at how terrible it is. People can get stuff working, but few actually have experience as to what does work anymore.

Cyraxx said:

NYT didn't bring anything to light. This isn't an Amazon problem, it's a white collar problem.

It's been a gradual slow process of changing over the years with things such as:
1. Going from a desktop computer at work to a laptop that you take home everything. This began the whole "Checking email at home" and working when you're bored, or if you need to work late on something that is due soon.
2. Now we are transitioning the phone into our lives. What was once hanging on our wall at home is now in our hands 24/7. The white collar work is making new ways to keep your work in your hands at all times. Like the article says, you could have received an email at 6PM and then a phone call at 8PM asking why you didn't respond.

Again, this isn't just Amazon.

Unless our government brings back overtime for anything > 40 hours (REGARDLESS of if people paid by time or salary), then it's only going to get worse. I shudder to think of the expectations coming in the next 10 years.

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Ohhh, how true your post is! This is exactly what is happening. Thanks man, I am glad that there are still people with open eyes. To add to it, the laptop is actually being phased out in place of the remote login. Look! Now you can login from ANY device, ANYWHERE! Look!

Nytegard said:

http://www.businessinsider.com/companies-ranked-by-turnover-rates-2013-7

They don't survive at those companies long enough. And while job hopping is notorious for west coast programmer, it's not just about people quitting. Many of those companies purposely fire employees after a couple years to keep salaries down along with not having to pay out stock, etc. Also, they can work the employees long hours with a churn and burn mentality. And it's not just Amazon though. It's part of the tech industries' dark secret.

A lot of people go into software development for the money, not the passion. They care only about the money, and they move out as soon as possible. But at the same time in my opinion, this leads to a lot of poor quality code. And it's not just about unrealistic deadlines. I look back at code I had wrote when I was out of college, back when I thought I was a hotshot or whatever, and I cringe at how terrible it is. People can get stuff working, but few actually have experience as to what does work anymore.

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True, but it's hard to keep the passion when most companies have policies that lead to crappy code. They drop all the buzzwords, but when push comes to shove, it's meet an arbitrary deadline that can be met, but only with poorly written code that's hard to maintain lacks documentation and so on.

And you're right about code. Leaving a job and going elsewhere is a great way to avoid maintaining your shitty code (and getting paid more in the process).

Just read the book "The Everything Store". It sounds like this has been the corporate culture for a very long time now. It even talks about how Google poaches the heck out of amazon people and the only thing stopping them from poaching more is the non-compete that all amazon hires sign.

Just wanted to inject this into the conversation, as it relates to this as well as the "lazy Americans need to work harder, particularly the poor!"

More hours, exact same median pay since 1995.

http://money.cnn.com/2015/08/18/new...cans-work-more/index.html?iid=surge-stack-dom

In 1979, people were working for 1,687 hours a year. By 2013, that figure had jumped to an average of 1,836 hours a year, according to an analysis of government data by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank.

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In 1979, people in the bottom 20% of earners worked about 1,250 hours a year. Today they are putting in 1,500 hours a year.
Experts say most of this increase is due to welfare reforms in the 1990s. Benefits were cut and more people were forced to look for work.

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Cyraxx said:

NYT didn't bring anything to light. This isn't an Amazon problem, it's a white collar problem.

It's been a gradual slow process of changing over the years with things such as:
1. Going from a desktop computer at work to a laptop that you take home everything. This began the whole "Checking email at home" and working when you're bored, or if you need to work late on something that is due soon.
2. Now we are transitioning the phone into our lives. What was once hanging on our wall at home is now in our hands 24/7. The white collar work is making new ways to keep your work in your hands at all times. Like the article says, you could have received an email at 6PM and then a phone call at 8PM asking why you didn't respond.

Again, this isn't just Amazon.

Unless our government brings back overtime for anything > 40 hours (REGARDLESS of if people paid by time or salary), then it's only going to get worse. I shudder to think of the expectations coming in the next 10 years.

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Not even 2 hours. My dad is a senior software engineer for a major healthcare system, and one time when visiting my parents while not even being on-call that day he received one call from work he didn't answer right away and another less than 10 minutes later from the same person asking why he hadn't responded yet.

As far as I'm aware, you're entitled to be compensated for any work done off-the-clock by law whether or not you're an exempt employee. Of course, because of the rampant cronyism in business everyone is afraid to speak out lest they risk their current or perspective employment.

Even worse than median income actually, when you adjust for inflation, weekly earnings in 2014 were the exact same as 1979.

Here's the rub: They're earning almost exactly the same. If you adjust for inflation, weekly earnings in 1979 averaged $332 a week. Weekly earnings in 2014 were $334.

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