UK workers tell Amazon to stop “risking our lives” on Prime Day
This open letter was first published on Organise. Amazon workers signed it on the Organise platform where you can see the full list of the signatories.
To John Boumphrey (Amazon UK Country Manager) and Jeff Bezos (Executive Chairman, Amazon):
For us, Prime Day is one of the most dangerous times of the year. During huge pushes like Prime Day and Black Friday, the pressure piles up so high it can land people in hospital.
So this year, we’re asking you to:
– Stop micromanagement
– Bin unfair targets like Time Off Task
– End the constant surveillance
Working in an Amazon warehouse today is so stressful. Even the tools we use, like scanners, are tracking us. We’re always worried about how many seconds we have left to pick up a parcel. We can’t even see all of the targets you track – and it makes it impossible for us to know if our jobs are ever safe.
We try to keep up, but it wears people out.
Drivers are struggling too. 96% of us have said we’ve had to drive dangerously to meet Amazon’s targets, according to a survey of hundreds of drivers from the Organise network.
We’re proud of the work we do to get parcels out to customers. But this inhuman pace can’t go on. It’s not worth risking people’s lives.
Please put this right. Stop the micromanagement. Bin the unfair targets. Let us work with dignity and end the constant surveillance.
Signed,
Amazon workers.
(See the full list of signatories on the Organise website: https://the.organise.network/campaigns/network-stop-risking-our-lives-on-prime-day-3c803e313eec1963)