Amazon's 'ambassador' workers assure Twitter: we can go to the toilet any time
Anxious consumers worried about the welfare of Amazon’s thousands of warehouse employees will be relieved to discover that they do in fact get to occasionally use the toilet. They’re also allowed to drink water on the job, work in well-lit spaces with really big fans, and don’t need food stamps to make ends meet.
And, for at least one of them, “Olive Garden is life”.
We know all this thanks to Amazon’s “FC ambassadors” – employees at the e-tailer’s fulfillment centers who spring to the company’s defense on Twitterwhen it’s being dragged for poor working conditions.
Over the last two weeks, 16 such accounts have sprouted up on Twitter in response to negative comments about Jeff Bezos’ wealth by Bernie Sanders, an alleged rise in health and safety complaints at Amazon facilities following Prime Day, and an April 2018 UK report that claimed Amazon employees skip bathroom breaks and urinate into bottles to ensure they make their quotas.
Why do American CEOs get paid so much?James K Galbraith
Read moreThe accounts are remarkably uniform in look and tone. All feature the familiar burnt-umber Amazon smile logo as their Twitter cover. All sport a photo of the account’s owner posed inside a warehouse, though many of their faces are not visible, and a first name but not a last one. All are relentlessly upbeat and articulate. And – surprise – they’re all quite happy about how Amazon is treating them.
They’re mostly stowers, pickers, or packers, and they claim to work in warehouses ranging from Kent, Washington, to Jacksonville, Florida.
Carol, a picker in Kent, tweets that with base salary, bonuses, and stock she makes around $15 an hour, not counting any overtime.
Adam, a stower based in San Marcos, Texas, says Amazon warehouse workers get healthcare coverage starting on day one and that the company will help pay employees’ college tuition.
Thomas, a picker from Jacksonville, loves narwhals and thinks sporks are underrated.
Beyond that, though, we don’t know much about them. (The Guardian reached out to a half dozen of the more active accounts on Twitter but had not received a response by press time.)
An Amazon spokesperson, Ty Rogers, assured the Guardian via email that these ambassadors were real employees who work in fulfillment centers, not Twitter bots. He declined to answer questions about how the accounts were created or if employees were compensated for defending the company on social media.
“FC ambassadors are employees who understand what it’s actually like to work in our FCs,” says Rogers. “The most important thing is that they’ve been here long enough to honestly share the facts based on personal experience. It’s important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC ambassador program is a big part of that, along with the FC tours we provide.”
Phil, a stower also based in Kent, is perhaps the most active ambassador on Twitter. He says he gets to use a bathroom whenever he wants, and that if Amazon was using Twitter bots to defend itself they’d be more entertaining.
He also says employees are rewarded for doing a good job with “Swag Bucks”, in-house currency that can only spent at the Amazon store, and that they typically spend it on things like sweatshirts and water bottles.
But just for drinking. Really.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/23/amazon-fc-ambassadors-twitter-working-conditions
And, for at least one of them, “Olive Garden is life”.
We know all this thanks to Amazon’s “FC ambassadors” – employees at the e-tailer’s fulfillment centers who spring to the company’s defense on Twitterwhen it’s being dragged for poor working conditions.
Over the last two weeks, 16 such accounts have sprouted up on Twitter in response to negative comments about Jeff Bezos’ wealth by Bernie Sanders, an alleged rise in health and safety complaints at Amazon facilities following Prime Day, and an April 2018 UK report that claimed Amazon employees skip bathroom breaks and urinate into bottles to ensure they make their quotas.
Why do American CEOs get paid so much?James K Galbraith
Read moreThe accounts are remarkably uniform in look and tone. All feature the familiar burnt-umber Amazon smile logo as their Twitter cover. All sport a photo of the account’s owner posed inside a warehouse, though many of their faces are not visible, and a first name but not a last one. All are relentlessly upbeat and articulate. And – surprise – they’re all quite happy about how Amazon is treating them.
They’re mostly stowers, pickers, or packers, and they claim to work in warehouses ranging from Kent, Washington, to Jacksonville, Florida.
Carol, a picker in Kent, tweets that with base salary, bonuses, and stock she makes around $15 an hour, not counting any overtime.
Adam, a stower based in San Marcos, Texas, says Amazon warehouse workers get healthcare coverage starting on day one and that the company will help pay employees’ college tuition.
Thomas, a picker from Jacksonville, loves narwhals and thinks sporks are underrated.
Beyond that, though, we don’t know much about them. (The Guardian reached out to a half dozen of the more active accounts on Twitter but had not received a response by press time.)
An Amazon spokesperson, Ty Rogers, assured the Guardian via email that these ambassadors were real employees who work in fulfillment centers, not Twitter bots. He declined to answer questions about how the accounts were created or if employees were compensated for defending the company on social media.
“FC ambassadors are employees who understand what it’s actually like to work in our FCs,” says Rogers. “The most important thing is that they’ve been here long enough to honestly share the facts based on personal experience. It’s important that we do a good job of educating people about the actual environment inside our fulfillment centers, and the FC ambassador program is a big part of that, along with the FC tours we provide.”
Phil, a stower also based in Kent, is perhaps the most active ambassador on Twitter. He says he gets to use a bathroom whenever he wants, and that if Amazon was using Twitter bots to defend itself they’d be more entertaining.
He also says employees are rewarded for doing a good job with “Swag Bucks”, in-house currency that can only spent at the Amazon store, and that they typically spend it on things like sweatshirts and water bottles.
But just for drinking. Really.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/23/amazon-fc-ambassadors-twitter-working-conditions
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