As one of the worker bees in the brutal Lehigh Valley hive told a reporter for the Allentown paper, "I never felt like passing out in a warehouse, 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 jobs in the area."
There's even a category of uniquely vulnerable Americans that Amazon goes after: "Workampers," they're called. These are modern day migrants who could've stepped right out of a Steinbeck novel or Woody Guthrie song. Unable to get stable jobs, they travel in RV campers, taking whatever temporary work they can get, then move on down the road. McClelland, the Mother Jones investigator, says there were hundreds of these migrants where she worked, noting that Amazon's warehouse operator "advertises positions on websites workampers frequent."
The temp agencies that are, in essence, the hiring offshoots of Amazon, have long lines of hard-up applicants waiting for every job in its warehouses, so oppressive conditions and ruthless work requirements that constantly cause workers to quit, be fired, or pass out are no problem for Bezos. By paying just one notch above McDonald's, he draws tens of thousands of people willing to get in line for exploitation.
Amazon smells today's mass desperation, preys on it, and thrives on it. That is the "magic" behind its super-cheap prices and super-efficient delivery system.
Reducing workers to Chaplinesque automatons in a rigid time-motion nightmare, however, is not the end of Bezos' reprogramming of work and workers. Why not just replace those pesky humans altogether? Last year, he announced that "Amazon Prime Air" is in the works -- a fleet of drones to deliver goods, gizmos, and gadgets to premium customers within 30 minutes after placing their must-have-now orders. But that's only phase one of his grand automation machination. Phase two is to take advantage of recent advances in artificial intelligence and ultimately replace all floor workers with robots.
Far-fetched? In 2012, Amazon bought Kiva Systems, Inc., a leading developer and installer of robotic warehouse systems. Guided by the central computer, hundreds of Kiva robots can glide seamlessly through the aisles to pluck the items. And they don't do lunch or take breaks (though they do require air conditioning), so for Bezos the Martian, robots eliminate the pesky need for any human touch.
Yes, you can say there's no humanity in Amazon warehouse jobs anyway, so who cares? Well, those workampers and others who have nowhere else to go care. It's a barren and wretched social vision that posits abusive jobs or no jobs as our choice. Last November, Amazon placed
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
2
1
1
