Do you want that movie? Click. Or how about those shoes? Click. Shopping online is easy With just a few strokes on your keyboard you can order anything you might want. You don't even need to get out of the house, and most of the time the products are much cheaper than what you could get in a regular store. How can the online retailers sell stuff so cheaply? They've exchanged cosy store fronts with enormous warehouses far away from the city centres. Here the warehouse employees work long hours under horrible conditions.
– I never felt like passing out before, and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one. They can do that because there aren’t any other jobs in the area, says former warehouse worker Elmer Goris to the American newspaper The Morning Call
Goris quit his job in the internet retail giant Amazon’s warehouse in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. After working there for ten years he was tired of mandatory overtime in the boiling hot warehouse, where the temperature could exceed 37 degrees Celsius in the summer. Him quitting was no big problem for Amazon, as the economic crisis makes sure that there are plenty of people wanting a job.
There is no help available for people in jobs like this. Journalist Mac McClelland in the newspaper Mother Jones worked in an online retailer warehouse for four months. While working there, someone told her that if she started crying she would be fired. One of McClellands co-workers was fired for taking a day of when his pregnant wife was in labour. The message is clear: Come to work and work hard—if you don’t, you’re fired.
The workers can’t get their voices heard. Most American states have very lax workers’ rights compared to European countries, and the workers tend to not stay in one job long enough to establish unions. Most of them are not even employed by Amazon, but for temporary employment agencies. In this way, Amazon is shielded from most of the responsibility: They claim to have a «fun, fast paced working environment» which hides the fact that the workers have to walk close to 20 kilometres a day on concrete floors.
There is a dark side to the internet retailers, but it is rarely shown to the public. Out in the streets, the shops can tempt you with good looking store fronts, cosy facilities and good customer service. For the internet retailers, price is the most important factor, so it is less profitable to spend money on a good working environment. There is fierce competition to sell items at the lowest possible price, and the warehouse workers suffer for it.
Most people have never thought about where the items they buy at online retailers come from. I had never considered further than «it comes from the post office». Maybe that’s why unacceptable working conditions are allowed to prevail; the online retailers have no need to defend themselves so long as nobody is making any accusations.
There is still hope, however. Media attention to the conditions has helped. After Amazon received criticism about the temperature in their warehouses, they invested 52 million dollars in airconditioning.
In the end, it’s tempting to choose the stores with the fastest delivery times and the lowest prices. If there is to be any change one should prioritize differently, and choose online retailers who treat their workers properly.
04 February 2013
