over the following years Amazon would
hire hundreds of thousands of workers
and become the largest private jobs
creator in the country at the
fulfillment centers Bezos experimented
with new techniques and technologies to
boost productivity willingness to
experiment is the key to being able to
do new things so we do you know hundreds
of experiments every day in our
fulfillment centers to get a little bit
better can effect incremental invention
[Music]
when a company called Kiva perfected a
warehouse robot Amazon bought the whole
company shipping robots it helped
transform the work environment in
Amazon's warehouses
[Music]
when I first showed up at Amazon in 1999
I let our global operations team Jeff
Wilkie created the Amazon Fulfillment
Center system and is one of two CEOs
under Jeff Bezos as we've added two
hundred thousand robots in that same
time for instance 2012 we've added three
hundred thousand people in our
fulfillment centers so what happens is
the robots change the work so they allow
us people don't have to walk as far
which is a complaint that we've heard in
the past they make the job safer they
make them higher quality because we
present a smaller set of options to
customer to two employees and that's all
good for customers and it's good for
employees but at the same time
complaints have persisted
people who've worked in warehouses for
decades say this is different this is
not the same we're here today because we
want to make sure that these workers
know about the rights in the workplace
especially around heat Shaharyar cos she
is an advocate for warehouse workers in
the San Bernardino California area
an Amazon hub with ten fulfillment
centers and over 15,000 employees
because of the way that Amazon operates
because of the way that they set their
rates for productivity it's a lot harder
work physically but also psychologically
we sat down with a group in San
Bernardino who'd recently worked at
Amazon when they first got here I
thought it was exciting
like for me I was thinking maybe I could
find a place where you know I'm gonna
set roots of a good job you know move up
in place but after being there for a
while like there's no way it's like okay
this is where I could probably make a
career but once you work there for a
certain amount of time is just like it's
just not realistic how they expect you
to work okay like dozens of workers
we've spoken to around the country they
say they've struggled to keep up with
the rate amazon expected them to pick
and pack items how realistic are the
rates that they're giving you I mean
there's absolutely no way to make rate
you know you got to find a little ways
to cheat it because once you hit rate by
the end of the week they race it they
bump it up again because they started
hey people - I would hit those rates
could hit those numbers hey that's
pushing a little harder every week it
seemed like it was going up you have
security cameras right behind you at all
times that are looking at you 24/7 and
if you don't meet standards or their
rates you're out the door you're just
disposable every worker has a scanner at
all times that basically track exactly
where you're at and they have a little
blue line at the bottom of the screen
and it has like how many seconds that
you have to have it done by the time it
hits zero and it puts you into panic
mode and pretty much you can't talk to
people you can't be in the same aisle as
them you just constantly have to sit
this cannon like a robot all day long if
they catch you not scanning you get it
right up and what they're doing is
they're producing this mass of data that
they are using to be able to analyze the
entire work force we're not treated as
human beings we're not even treated as
robots we're treated as part of the data
stream
it's the incentive at any warehouse on
any assembly line to get the most out of
any worker you know to make rates - to
be as efficient as possible to be as
productive as possible so I don't see
exactly what's different about Amazon as
opposed to any other warehouse Amazon is
the cutting edge
other warehouses are starting to adopt
these technologies other companies are
definitely interested in doing what
Amazon is doing data collection could
become basically the standard for all
workers and that there's net you're
never good enough you're never able to
keep up
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Amazon told us work rates are not based
on an individual employees performance
and that the scanning devices workers
use are not for trucking people but
inventory are common practice in the
warehouse industry we've talked to
workers around the country both current
and former workers they've described the
pace of work as being really grueling in
the early thinking about rates and how
far you could push human beings in terms
of their productivity what was the
thinking about that well obviously if
the rates are too high you're not gonna
have people showing up for work so we
have 600,000 people at the company most
of them are in the fulfillment centers
and they come to work every day they
stay for years these are considered
great jobs in the hundreds of
communities where we have fulfillment
centers all over the world and in the
u.s. we have almost every state has an
operation in it and people come to work
because these are great jobs they're
safe we pay double the minimum wage the
national minimum wage we have terrific
benefits the benefits for the folks that
work on the floor are the same benefits
that my family has access to our family
leave is like 20 weeks so the rates are
set so that we can accomplish what we
need to which is get orders to customers
in a reasonable time and in a
high-quality way and that creates a
workplace that people want to come back
to and they do
Amazon wouldn't tell us how long
fulfillment center workers stay on the
job or how often they're injured but
workers we spoke to say the rates are
higher than other warehouses and that
the company rebuffs attempts to unionize
we do not believe unions are in the best
interest of our customers our
shareholders or most importantly our
associates this is a clip from a video
that company says it used in the past to
teach managers about employees rights
and labor laws the most obvious signs
would include use of words associated
with unions or Union led movements like
living wage or steward early on Amazon
took a position to basically be
anti-union well why was that decision
made I don't think we made the decision
to be anti-union we just feel that all
of the things that that unions would
would want to to get us to do we've
already done what about setting rate
though do you not see that there's a
little bit more leverage in the hands of
management in this scenario than there
would be in a unionized environment I
don't know it's hard to speculate on
that but that I do think that we have
the obligation to set rates that are
again going to encourage people to seek
these jobs and deliver for customers you
know what we've promised what would you
say to someone though who's worked in
your fulfillment centers that feels as
though there's been that that humans are
increasingly being treated like robots
because it's something that we've
actually heard and I don't sense it's
hyperbole
well the that's not the experience that
that I hadn't setting it up or that I've
seen it's probably it's certainly true
that that these jobs are not for
everybody and there there may be people
that don't want to do this kind of work
Amazon executives also stressed the
company has become an industry leader in
training its workforce for career
advancement we just announced a pledge
recently to spend seven hundred million
dollars to upskill which is basically
creating career opportunities for people
a hundred thousand of our employees we
pay ninety five percent of tuition to go
to us to college to get a skill that
isn't about Amazon
that's about creating options for the
employees
I would expect those people to take
advantage of that work for us for a
couple of years and then go do something
that they would much rather do and
that's okay
there'll be people that will hear what
you all are saying and they'll say well
you signed up for physical labor a job
as a job there were benefits and they're
now investing at seven hundred million
dollars to do retraining for other types
of jobs what's the real grievance what
is there to complain about I actually
used to think that way for a while
whenever I when I first started whoever
I heard complaints from was like well it
was in the job description and and you
signed up for it the part they don't
talk about is the safety rules that you
have to ignore to make great it's not
just you go in okay you do your job and
that's it
so you're in you're in a weird bind it's
incredibly hard to meet rate while
following all the safety procedures a
complaint that we've heard from workers
in terms of the sort of automation of
their work as humans some of them
telling us that yes there are high
safety standards in these fulfillment
centers but that in order to make rate
they're having to cheat the standard a
little bit I would say that's not okay
so I from the moment that I arrived 20
years ago I made it very clear to our
operations teams that we will not
compromise the safety of our employees
to do anything else so we have we have a
culture that if if we are asking people
to do something that is that that they
have to do to fast to be safe they can
raise their hand and say this isn't
right and and we'll fix it