Lucky break for low-paid workers?
• Surge of online shopping puts Amazon’s working conditions in the spotlight, but author says only government action will force large companies to change
The pandemic-driven rise in online shopping feels like the sort of trend that is going to outlast this crisis. It is not a coincidence that Facebook, Shopify and the former COO of Stitch Fix have all launched new shopping platforms over the past few weeks.
Some companies have even tried to convince customers of their own heroism. “Do your part,” boomed a US Burger King advert, “stay on your couch and order in.”
My own immoderate online shopping habits have taken a hit since I found myself temporarily marooned from San Francisco. When the UK lockdown began, I was visiting my parents in the New Forest and stayed put.
In spite of the odd circumstances, my near 70year-old housemates and I get along remarkably well.
They try not to talk loudly about breakfast when I am on an FT editorial video conference. I try not to nag them too much about remembering they are in the extremely vulnerable category for the virus. This last point does not always go down well. So far, my principal victory has been the installation of an online grocery delivery account that has put a stop to shopping trips into town.
That is the sort of prompt ecommerce companies are counting on. Once you realise how easy it is to tap a few buttons and see items appear on your doorstep, it becomes a hard habit to break. Coronavirus may be the catalyst that changes the shopping habits of millions of people for good.
The advice for those fretting about the ethics of ordering online during a pandemic has mostly centred on consumer choice. A column in The New York Times suggested readers might support small businesses.
An article in Quartz quoted an ethics professor as advising against frivolous purchases.
Perhaps some readers heeded this advice, but ecommerce giant Amazon has still emerged as a clear winner during this period.
RICHEST MAN
Sales rose more than a quarter in the first three months of the year. Founder Jeff Bezos has extended his lead as the richest man in the world.
This is in spite of Amazon workers raising the alarm about safety early on, pointing out that they could receive sick pay only with a coronavirus diagnosis — something hampered by the lack of tests. The company has yet to provide figures for workforce coronavirus cases and deaths, claiming the data is not “particularly useful”.
None of this is new. Amazon’s rise has always been linked inextricably with criticism about conditions for its workers. In Emily Guendelsberger’s description of life as a picker at an Amazon warehouse, On the Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane, she describes the exhaustion of productivity tracking, the hours spent walking alone without windows, noises or other people around and the vending machines that dispensed painkillers to struggling workers.
I called Guendelsberger to see what she thought about the renewed interest in Amazon ’ s workplace conditions, expecting her to support conscientious consumer choices. Instead, she dismissed the idea that a few people opting to shop locally could make a difference to the lives of workers. “The only thing with the scale to equal Amazon and companies like that is government,” she says.
This appears to be true. In the US, worker protests have not slowed Amazon’s sales growth. In France, however, where a court ordered the company to sell only essential items after a dispute over worker safety, the company ’ s warehouses closed.
Yet Guendelsberger points out that Amazon’s response to the pandemic has been better than many other companies. The temporary offer of higher hourly and overtime pay and unpaid time off without penalty were praised on the Reddit forum of Amazon workers she is part of. Such actions have not been universal.
The provision of safety equipment and hazard pay has been left up to the whim of companies. Paid sick leave is not always required. “There are many less well-examined workplaces in which workers are treated far worse,” she says. “The uncomfortable reality is that Amazon is a comparatively good place to work.”
Amazon, now the secondlargest employer in the US, has become the focus point for arguments around low-paying jobs. Guendelsberger hopes this can broaden out. The pandemic’s ability to shine a light on working conditions could be just as potent as its boost to e-commerce. /©