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It has long been reported that the Amazon e-commerce giant was an uncomfortable place to hold a job. Article by article, article by article, he relayed the claims of an ultra-competitive work culture, with employees being treated like soulless robots, performance requirements, as well as long hours of monotonous work. This includes mandatory seasonal overtime, which some workers say sometimes leads to injury.
Here is a flawless overview of the meaning of these working conditions for some of the richest man in the world: From October 2013 to October 2018, authorities responded to at least 189 calls to 911 for "suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts and other mental problems. "Health episodes" in Amazon warehouses, according to a report released Monday by the Daily Beast. According to the report, these are just the ones that have been discovered. The 46 warehouses in 17 US states where calls are made represent "about one quarter of the sorting and processing centers that make up the company's US network." have the list of those calls or recordings unavailable, wrote the Beast.)
Some of the calls involved people who were upset about issues unrelated to their work at Amazon, while others involved people who were not employed or hired to work in the facilities. And although the Beast Report stated that there was no evidence that Amazon staff had more mental health crises in the workplace requiring intervention than those of other companies, it was nevertheless noted that many incidents appeared to have been related to working conditions.
Nick Veasley, a former Amazon warehouse employee in Etna, Ohio, who was occupying a stock counting station for $ 14.50 at the time, said that he was not in charge. He had to deal with hundreds of articles per hour and described managers so focused on metrics that workers were afraid to talk to each other. , lest they be approached for an unauthorized break. He told the Beast that standing all day was correlated with worsening ankle pain requiring surgery. When he returned to work after a two-month hiatus, he was sanctioned for taking the bathroom breaks needed to manage his irritable bowel syndrome. diverticulitis:
He received two articles and was told that another violation could result in suspension or termination, he said. (Amazon described his account as "highly improbable," saying managers are working with human resources to conduct an in-depth conversation about the "hurdles" that make employees "rack up time.") "Usually I can get out of a problem, but I could not. do not work at Amazon, "said Veasley. "I felt like I had a thousand pounds wrapped around my ankle and that kept pulling me up and there was no way out."
Finally, after Veasley announced to a factory guard that he wanted to drive his car off a cliff, Amazon had summoned the police and was taken into custody for three days in a psychiatric ward.
"This place has so screwed me up that I found myself in a depression where I was actually stuck for 72 hours in a psychiatric ward," Veasley told the Beast.
Six current employees or former employees of Amazon who have experienced mental health crises "requiring emergency assistance at the warehouse" told the Beast that the demands of hard work at Amazon had contributed to the situation. One of them said that the leaders would accuse the workers of not respecting the quotas, even when they were impossible to reach, while the former employee of one of them Lakeland 's warehouse in Florida, Jace Crouch, described the environment as "an isolated colony of hell where the broken down people occur regularly".
The Beast report also noted that the intervention of emergency personnel did not put an end to the indignities that Amazon workers were facing. Several of them stated on the website that they had difficulty getting redress or treatment:
Of the six current or former employees of Amazon who spoke at the Daily Beast, five were on leave. They claimed that they had difficulty obtaining the promised compensation, that the counseling services were inadequate or unaffordable and that they had sometimes been dismissed.
After being removed from Amazon by emergency responders – a situation that some found humiliating – workers were often put on medical disability leave or for disability, entitling them to 60% of their salary and a return to work after authorization from the psychiatric service … some workers used the company's employee assistance program, which included three telephone conversations with a counselor, and also called upon a external psychiatric help. Even with health insurance provided by Amazon, the costs were often a financial constraint.
Amazon has denied the charges contained in the report, stating in a statement to the Beast that the number of calls housed in its warehouses was an "over-generalization" that "does not take into account the total number of". associates, hours worked or the growth of our network. "
"The physical and mental well-being of our employees is our top priority and we are proud of our efforts and overall success in this area," Amazon told the site. "We provide comprehensive medical care from day one so that employees have access when they need it most, free, confidential 24-hour counseling, and a variety of leave options." medical accommodation covering mental and physical health issues.
If you or someone you know has suicidal ideation, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or send a text message to the crisis line at 741-741.
[The Daily Beast]
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