Amazon’s Excellent Employee Incentive But Lousy Workplace Conditions

Would you accept good benefits over poor work conditions?

If you know about the OUTSTANDING employee incentive that Amazon has for full time workers, you might be inclined to overlook their reported mistreatment of warehouse workers.

Before I tell you about the biggest incentive they offer to hourly employees who meet the requirements, first, let me tell you about the company.

Not from the perspective of a consumer, but from the viewpoint of a worker talking about work conditions.

What kind of employer is Amazon known to be?

The truth about the kind of employer Amazon is reported to be, is still coming out as we speak. They have been in the news for several months regarding this topic, and they’re likely to remain in the news, until as late as 2022.

People have their eye on this trillion dollar company, and justifiably so. According to one CNBC News Report (as recent as November 13, 2021), the following occurred:

“Amazon on Monday reached a settlement with California’s attorney general over claims it concealed Covid cases from warehouse workers.

As part of the agreement, Amazon will step up its covid safety measures, including notifying workers within one day of new Covid cases.”

This was the result of California’s former Attorney General, Xavier Becerra. In 2020, Becerra opened a probe into the mistreatment of Amazon’s warehouse workers, specifically during the pandemic.

The results of the probe affects tens of thousands of warehouse workers that are employed by Amazon, in the state of California.

More complaints from Amazon workers in another big city

Could it be that Amazon’s competition with Fedex and UPS is causing them to go to the extremes?

This Youtube video (sponsored by Amazon) was created to give people a view into what goes on inside their fulfillment centers. But can a promotional video, created by the company under scrutiny, truly reveal the questionable practices that the company is accused of?

The treatment of their warehouse workers is under fire, in more places than just California.

Just this past June, the New York Times did a deep dive into what took place during the pandemic, inside New York City’s only Amazon fulfillment center, known as “JFK8”.

Their report concluded:

“…the crisis exposed the power and peril of Amazon’s employment system. The company famously obsessed with satisfying customers achieved record growth and spectacular profits, but its management of hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers was marked at times by critical mistakes, communication lapses and high turnover.”

This is clearly manifested in the way so many new employees continually accept, and later leave Amazon warehouse jobs.

Here is a screenshot of the “hiring” board for warehouse workers, located on Amazon’s website.

As you can see, the innocent promo makes an appealing offer to potential workers and even seems inviting.

The above-mentioned NY Times report revealed how in 2020, Amazon signed up 350,000 workers in just three short months. They dangled a wage of no less than $15 an hour, and plenty of good benefits.

But when workers started leaving, it wasn’t just due to the pandemic conditions that started occurring. Even before then, there was trouble in paradise.

Workers complained about being fired if they are viewed as working too slowly, or appear idle for too long. Amazon apparently monitors the workers closely enough to track their every movement inside the warehouses.

The Times further discussed how “previously unreported data” confirmed that Amazon was already losing roughly 3 percent of its hourly associates on a weekly basis.

Calculating things at that particular rate would require Amazon to replace their entire work force approximately every eight months!

Can this type of job incentive replace poor work conditions?

I wasn’t all that surprised or impressed to learn that Amazon will pay for:

• High school diplomas
• GEDs
• English as a Second Language (ESL) proficiency certifications

These are just some of the educational related incentives that are available for Amazon front-line employees. But here’s the part that blew me away when I learned about it. Through their Career Choice program, Amazon will also completely fund the full college tuition for qualified employees, and that includes those who have only worked at the company for as few as three months.

That is just one incentive that I still find hard to believe. But what’s even harder to believe is that not everyone is as excited by the offer as me. It’s almost unheard of. Once upon a time, people would be falling all over themselves to take advantage of what was commonly referred to as a full ride.

Apparently, not anymore. In fact, given the kind of negative and unsafe work atmosphere that Amazon has been found guilty of allowing, I honestly wonder if their incentives are falling on deaf ears.

Do Amazon’s strict employee quotas and policies affect their delivery services?

As was mentioned, Amazon is in constant competition, with regard to the delivery of products that are ordered online.

This makes you wonder whether or not Amazon’s strict quotas and productivity tracking methods extend beyond their warehouses.

If you ever had something delivered from Amazon, you probably understand why I say this. Their delivery methods leave a lot to me desired.

Most of us, at one point or another, has ordered something online from Amazon. Me and my household make these kinds of purchases all the time, and at least 80% of the time, I’m irritated by their delivery procedures.

I rarely hear anyone bother to knock at the door to alert me to a package, let alone wait for a response, and make sure the package is received. This happened to me, more times than I can count.

I live in a three-story building, and I’m constantly knocking on my neighbor’s doors, letting them know they have packages sitting outside their front doors.

I’ve even been outside on my daily walks, and watched delivery people from Amazon hurriedly set packages down, and leave quickly, without so much as a boo to the customer.

Now that I understand the kinds of pressure that is put on Amazon employees, I understand why this appears to be an Amazon issue, and not just a matter of lazy, unprofessional employees.

Final Thoughts

When you consider the details that have been laid out in this story, how does it make you view Amazon’s treatment of their warehouse workers?

Does it help you understand why so many people are changing the way they view the work place and staying employed in jobs they hate?

A recent story written by Jessica WildFire did a splendid job of summing up where we are in the world today. Her story sheds ample light on some meaningful topics concerning work and employment, but also on the changing views about education.

At first, I couldn’t understand how any parent with school age kids could possibly bypass Amazon’s college incentive to employees. College tuition has always been one of the most important goals on a parent’s agenda.

But after reading Jessica’s story, it helped to put things in a little more perspective. If you’d like to consider more on this point, do yourself a favor and read her story:

We’re Starting to Feel Like There’s Nothing Left to Lose

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