I'm going to copy and paste from something I wrote in another thread.
From my experience with warehouses/fulfillment centers, all the other options are same or worse than Amazon with regards to worker treatment. Besides, on Amazon plenty of merchants do their own fulfillment, and those that do fulfill with Amazon are going to fulfill with Amazon on eBay or Rakuten or their own website anyway. To do so morally you'll have to look into the fulfillment details of any individual company you do business with.
Honestly, it just sucks to be an unskilled worker in today's society, its not something new to Amazon.
I hear this often if I try to discuss Amazon.com work conditions, but I don't like the excuse. Costco is the largest company that comes to mind which makes much stronger claims and (if you believe them) treats employees, even 'unskilled' employees, better.
Here are some Glassdoor reviews for Costco Wholesale:
I'm sure this isn't a good comparison. But Costco is doing fine and has a large market cap (52B).
This isn't new to Amazon.com, but Amazon.com is exemplary in treating employees in high-demand (i.e. easily replaceable) positions poorly. We should talk about their warehouses because their policies alone could nudge the industry to being more compassionate.
Bezos repeats that "long-term" "willing to be misunderstood" stuff a lot, but how many companies have tried really treating replaceable workers well? Maybe the current conditions inhibit workers from fulfilling their potential and making larger impacts than carrying boxes.
Comments
I'm going to copy and paste from something I wrote in another thread.
From my experience with warehouses/fulfillment centers, all the other options are same or worse than Amazon with regards to worker treatment. Besides, on Amazon plenty of merchants do their own fulfillment, and those that do fulfill with Amazon are going to fulfill with Amazon on eBay or Rakuten or their own website anyway. To do so morally you'll have to look into the fulfillment details of any individual company you do business with.
Honestly, it just sucks to be an unskilled worker in today's society, its not something new to Amazon.
I hear this often if I try to discuss Amazon.com work conditions, but I don't like the excuse. Costco is the largest company that comes to mind which makes much stronger claims and (if you believe them) treats employees, even 'unskilled' employees, better.
Here are some Glassdoor reviews for Costco Wholesale:
http://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Costco-Wholesale-Reviews-E2...
I'm sure this isn't a good comparison. But Costco is doing fine and has a large market cap (52B).
This isn't new to Amazon.com, but Amazon.com is exemplary in treating employees in high-demand (i.e. easily replaceable) positions poorly. We should talk about their warehouses because their policies alone could nudge the industry to being more compassionate.
Bezos repeats that "long-term" "willing to be misunderstood" stuff a lot, but how many companies have tried really treating replaceable workers well? Maybe the current conditions inhibit workers from fulfilling their potential and making larger impacts than carrying boxes.
It sucks to be an unskilled worker in any society. If it didn't suck, people wouldn't go through years and years of trouble just to acquire skills.