What happened to Amazon’s pledge to be ‘Earth’s best employer’?

Jeff Bezos wrote a letter promising to do better by Amazon’s workers. The GMB wonders what happened, says James Moore

GMB went on strike at the Amazon warehouse in Coventry on Wednesday (Reuters)

There’s a scene in Andor, Disney’s dark Star Wars-for-grown-ups series, where the protagonist is imprisoned as a factory worker.

“All they need to do is turn this floor on twice a day and keep their numbers rolling,” he says. “Why bother listening to us? We are nothing to them. We’re cheaper than droids, easier to replace.”

I was put in mind of this scene by an interview with a pair of striking Amazon workers complaining of “severe conditions” in Coventry in which even trips to the toilet led to questions from managers. “Robots are treated better than us,” one said.

GMB says its members were made subject to “constant monitoring”. They were pressured to hit targets they don’t even know about.

Think about what the union and its members have been saying and then watch Andor on Disney+ (episodes eight and nine are the ones you want) to enjoy life imitating art.

Of course, the workers at Amazon’s warehouses get paid while those in Emperor Palpatine’s fictional sweatshop don’t. But they earn little enough. They are on strike because they say a 5 per cent pay rise – as little as 50p an hour for some – in the midst of a cost of living crisis is not enough. Inflation is still running at over 10 per cent. They are thus faced with a real-terms pay cut.

Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos, a regular contender for the title of world’s richest man, wrote a valedictory letter to shareholders ahead of stepping down as chief executive in July 2021.

In it, he indulged in some typical boosterism. His missive was published before the company’s recent difficulties, at a time when home deliveries were flying in the middle of the pandemic. Investors were cock-a-hoop. Customers were happy, too; many relied on it during that grim period when bricks and mortar shops were enduring an enforced closure.

Bezos also trumpeted the company’s services to the small businesses that use its marketplace to sell their goods, among other things.

But what about the workers on whose backs the company’s spectacular success has been built? Turning to them, Bezos sought to defend the much-criticised work practices at the company: “We don’t set unreasonable performance goals. We set achievable performance goals that take into account tenure and actual employee performance data.”

He said Amazon workers were able to take “informal breaks” in addition to two statutory half-an-hour breathers (one of them for lunch).

But after thwarting a bid for unionisation in Bessemer, Alabama, he said he took no comfort from the result: “I think we need to do a better job for our employees.” He promised to make Amazon “Earth’s Best Employer and Earth’s Safest Place to Work” as well as “Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company” (the capital letters are his).

Has he succeeded? I put the question to the GMB union. Senior organiser Stuart Richards said: “The GMB is disappointed that a couple of years after those comments were made, nothing appears to have changed. Amazon still doesn’t pay enough for our members to live on. The working conditions are atrocious.

“The ‘informal breaks’ Mr Bezos talks about? Our members do not recognise that. They are constantly on the go and subject to harassment from managers if they take so much as a breather.”

Those comments are borne out by the action Amazon workers in Coventry are taking. It takes an awful lot to organise a union in a big, powerful company such as Amazon. The government has also made it extraordinarily difficult for unions to take industrial action, if they can clear that first hurdle. Rishi Sunak and co have promised further repressive laws of the type you might expect from a tinpot dictatorship not one of the world’s oldest democracies.

A company aspiring to be “Earth’s Best Employer” should not look like the dark vision of life under an evil empire a long time ago in a galaxy far away. Yet to listen to the testimony of its workers, it does.

Richards called upon the company to live up to its founder’s pledges. Amazon’s bosses should start by getting around the table.