eRetailer's Working Conditions

(11/25/2013) The low-skill low-pay working conditions at many major retailers (like Walmart) in the US have been criticized for a long time. As eRetailers get bigger and more influential (like Amazon.com) in the market, the job opportunities brought by these eRetailers are not much better. In an Amazon.com's warehouse in UK, the hidden camera revealed the stressful working conditions. The workers working there as order pickers are like machine. When they fail to pick the right order the computer 'beeps' to warn their mistakes. The researcher says "The characteristics of this type of job, the evidence shows increased risk of mental illness and physical illness." (Another article about Amazon unfairly underpaying workers for their security checking time in Germany and in the US.) The sad thing is that eRetailers have to use people to do order picking because the robot machines are not sophisticated enough. If one day the machine can replace the workers, the eRetailers will definitely 'replace' workers by new machines to 'improve the working conditions. Isn't it ironic? The low skilled workers will lose their job then.

Below is a positive report about the complexity of Amazon's distribution center.

Labor Disputes Creep to Amazon

(10/6/2013) You probably think of Walmart if I say a retailer that is struggling with labor issues. But now it's Amazon. German Amazon workers may be on a strike before the Christmas sales season in Europe. Note that, Amazon recently has been caught with unfair treatment to their warehouse workers in the US too. Several lawsuits in the US are acting against Amazon now. As an online shopper, we will not see these unhappy workers squeezing their insincere greeting to us like those in Walmart or Target (that is the difference between front-end and back-end operations). But we should not ignore the working conditions and unfair pay those Amazon workers experience.

(12/16/2013) Dear Mr. Bezos, don't say these German workers didn't give you a warning. "Hundreds of workers at Amazon.com in Germany have walked off the job in an effort to put pressure on the American online retailer in the busy days before Christmas to settle on a new wage agreement." You (Amazon) fails yourself.