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An Amazon warehouse.
Amazon has confirmed a TucsonSentinel.com report from March that the company is building a giant distribution center on the Southeast Side. The company will hire about 1,500 workers here.... Read more»
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5 comments on this story
I imagine there are State labor laws regarding breaks, lunch time, and sick time. As to having to work hard all day, that’s life in the real world. Acquire more skills and find a different job if you want.
FredTheHup - You should do more research before you comment…
Gawker published a brutal series of emails describing life inside Amazon warehouses, where temporary employees toil in freezing conditions (just like Scrooge refused to pay for heat in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol). Their rest and lunch breaks disappear because Amazon’s warehouses are so big its takes several minutes of walking to get to and from their work-station. THAT is life in real world for sad Amazon employees.
Pennsylvania’s Morning Call published a series of stories about Amazon warehouses that were so hot workers fainted on the job and were placed on stretchers by paramedics. (Amazon has since installed air conditioning - aren’t they just so considerate to finally do this?)
Amazon’s temp agency aggressively opposes unemployment compensation for workers who were let go because they were sick, The Morning Call reported.
Mother Jones did an in-depth piece that described how Amazon workers are fired if they burst into tears on the job. (“There’s 16 other people who want your job. Why would they keep a person who gets emotional, especially in this economy?”)
One account of being trained at an Amazon warehouse compared it to being in prison: “My initial thought was this is prison, the comparisons were obvious. I felt like asking anyone sitting by me or standing in line next to me ‘so, what are you in for?’ It would have been a completely appropriate question.”
And it’s not just the warehouses. Published portions of an email from an Amazon temp developer explained that because Amazon only seems to hire temps, the pay and the quality of work stay low.
Is this really the type of employer Tucson wants to attract? Has Amazon become so large that there’s no other option than to submit to this kind of overt abuse? I guess we really have nobody to blame but ourselves for shopping there.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.” – Pogo, 1953
Re-read my comment. Don’t like that job, go get another.
Re-read my comment and then go get a job in China were “real” men work.
Employers are welcome! So is transparency. If “multiple sources confirmed then, on condition of anonymity, that economic incentives have been discussed regarding the project, and that Pima County officials were reviewing documents”, the County should disclose the deal. Who wins? Who loses? How much? Ted Downing