Nearly 90 per cent of Amazon India’s warehouse employees say they are not allowed sufficient time to use the restroom, according to a new survey that adds to a growing body of evidence of poor working conditions at the multinational corporation.
The results of the survey – conducted by the UNI Global Union, the Amazon India Workers Association and Jarrow Insights, a workers’ cooperative based in London – are detailed in an exhaustive report on the conditions that warehouse workers and drivers of the e-commerce giant in India have to daily endure.
The Independent last month reported an incident at the company’s Manesar warehouse in the northern Haryana state where workers were allegedly asked to make a pledge that they would not take any breaks, including to drink water or go to the bathroom, until they met their targets as they worked amid a brutal heatwave.
India’s labour ministry intervened after the national human rights commission asked for an investigation.
Responding to the ministry, Amazon India confirmed the incident but played it down as “unfortunate and isolated”.
The survey paints a contradictory picture.
Nearly 81 per cent of Amazon India warehouse employees say work targets set by the company are difficult or very difficult to achieve.
Because we’re all underpaid and both morals and suffering are relative.
That fact is so damned motivating in every aspect of our lives EXCEPT as a common starting point for us to get along enough to actually do anything about it.
Being physically separated from those experiencing the pain contributes as well, I believe.
I’d like to think if Amazon offered maid service and folks could tell the housekeepers were being abused, it would greatly diminish the service’s popularity.
Doubtful. People would just reframe whatever was necessary in order to not challenge their opinion of their own experience, because changing such a thing is seen so negatively by so many people.
The “We’ll change things if we make it visable” approach has clearly failed.