‘The retailer, which last year made more than £6bn of revenues in
Britain, has a disciplinary system under which points are accrued for
illness. Workers are issued a penalty point for each episode of
sickness.
Workers are told that more than one point will result
in a “series of counselling and disciplinary meetings” and between four
and six points can result in dismissal.
In one case, a woman who spent three days in hospital with a kidney
infection was docked two points, reduced to one on appeal, despite
providing a hospital note.
The system has been revealed in an investigation by The Sunday Times at Amazon’s sorting depot in Dunfermline, Scotland.
The
undercover reporter was paid £7.35 per hour by an agency that supplies
workers to Amazon, but was left with less than the minimum wage after
paying £10 for the agency’s bus which took her to the site 40 miles from
her home in Glasgow.
It emerged this weekend that some low-paid
workers are camping out in woodland near the sorting depot to avoid
paying the bus costs and ensure they are left with more than the minimum
wage…
The reporter obtained a job with PMP Recruitment, one of the two main
agencies that hires and supervises workers at the Dunfermline depot.
The investigation found:
- Workers being threatened with dismissal
if they accrued too many points for illness, late attendance or
absence, or for making too many errors or failing to hit productivity
targets.
- A claim from a worker in Amazon’s on-site first-aid
clinic that workers were under pressure to hit targets and were
suffering injuries in the rush to collect products
- Workers were
expected to cover more than 10 miles a day in the warehouse collecting
items, but water dispensers to ensure they avoided dehydration were
regularly empty
- The reporter was told she had to sign an
opt-out of the working time directive, which limits weekly hours to 48,
in order to get a job.
The reporter was employed as a “temporary
warehouse operative” at Amazon’s vast plant in Fife. She worked in the
“picking” department, which involved retrieving items from across
several floors of the sprawling warehouse, according to orders displayed
on a handheld scanner she was given. She worked at least 10 hours a
day, with an unpaid 30-minute lunch break and two 15-minute paid breaks….
Under the system
set out in the Amazon temporary associate handbook, half a point is
issued to recruits who are late to work or late back from a break; one
point for “one period of sickness”; and three points for “no call, no
show”. The undercover reporter was told that anyone who was more than 30
seconds late in arriving at work or returning after a break would be
subject to the half-point penalty.
Workers were also told that if
they made more than one error a week in collecting items or failed to
hit productivity targets they could be subject to a disciplinary
process, which could result in dismissal.’
