On 27 November 2013 14:18, Richard Symonds richard.symonds@wikimedia.org.uk wrote:
To be fair, I will be moving away from Amazon for day-to-day purchases after watching Panorama last night... it's not really feasible to move away from Amazon vouchers, but I will definitely look into how we might be able to.
I have always been against giving Amazon vouchers. If you have to use vouchers, then employee-owned organizations like John-Lewis are always going to be a more ethical purchase.
The TV programme was entertainment, not an analysis. Amazon did not get an opportunity to respond. In particular having been a quality manager for factory floor production, using basic statistical process control for optimizing batch pick time is not in the least bit unreasonable. Bizarrely worker break times were not mentioned (nobody works a 10 hour shift without multiple reasonable breaks), neither was the very fair process for allocating and rewarding night-work shifts. I don't know why anyone would pick stock in areas where the light were out, this was plainly a stupid thing to do, and the floor manager at the time should have asked staff to not do that and defer those jobs until the electrician had fixed those problems.
It may be worth asking Amazon for a direct statement about how they respond to the criticism (from a single contract employee and from haphazardly self-selected ex-employees, that the programme was almost entirely based on).
Fae