Warehouses: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

we're going to talk about e-commerce it's like regular Commerce only no one calls the police when you do it naked the rise of e-commerce has dramatically changed the way that we shop for everything and its convenience is irresistible as this woman admits I don't have to get out of the house why not just an Amazon Prime in now I know that she might sound lazy there but you simply can't blame Ashley in our deburr she's she spent her life at the beginning of every alphabetical list she's never had to wait for anything n through Z that's the sturdy boys half of the alphabet that is where you learn the meaning of the phrase hold on a second John and she is right twenty years ago when you ran out of something like toilet paper yet to pull on your Juicy Couture velour pants hugs and Von Dutch hats leave your house and go to something called a store physically locate something called an aisle pick the toilet paper up with your physical arms drag yourself to the register using your legs and feet pay for it with cash and then somehow transport the toilet paper all the way back to your house in a bag even if you were thirsty it was hell now thankfully you can just click a button which is much better it's frankly no wonder the e-commerce is gradually chipping away at brick-and-mortar retail sales and it can't seem like the retail jobs are shifting to the number of workers who lost their jobs at department stores like Sears Macy's and JC Penney since 2000 is about the same as the four hundred and forty-four thousand hired by the warehousing industry it is if warehouses are absorbing America's lost retail employees which initially sounds kind of nice doesn't it it's like hearing that there's actually a farm upstate where borders Circuit City and Tower Records employees can run around and be free when you always just assumed that that was a lie and that they were all euthanized what actually happens in warehouses can be invisible to most people unless companies like Amazon choose to give us entertaining glimpses into what a fun workplace they run like this have you ever wondered how Amazon gets your packages to you so quickly we do it with two things amazing technology and amazing people tell us about yourself Sean I receive products and I'm a horrible dancer can we see some moves the slam machine ways skander box and attaches a label all in like one second oh and that's Ryan he loves photography I do love photography finally Jacky gives every single box a long and loving hug before loading it onto a truck yeah yeah oh maybe just this one okay oh you love it hold on hold on saying you love it after coercing her into hugging a box is gross and it's frankly telling that on YouTube when this is true comments are disabled for that video presumably because Amazon knew that the only reasonable response to that is everything about this but the truth is those jobs are not all dance-off sandbox hugging they are physically hard as this commentator says albeit in the most tactless way possible but when you go to these distribution centers fulfillment centers they like to call them because it's supposed to be fulfilling it's anything but it's an amazing thing to see but when I have when I my first time I visited one of these massive warehouses with row after row after row of stuff and these people walking miles tens of miles a day picking these things and putting them back in there it just looks like back-breaking exhausting work it made me thank God that I went to college that's right Wow joking about people not going to college is some concentrated elitism although to be fair it is the condescension that really pulls his outfit together a lilac plaid shirt beneath her pastel plaid blazer you look like a Brooks Brothers mannequin who was thrown out for being a noise violation but but the thing is he is right it is back-breaking labor sometimes literally the injury and illness rate in the warehouse industry is higher than industries like coal mining construction and logging and I didn't know that there were jobs more dangerous than those other than maybe rodeo clown Oompa Loompa or shark dentist and now is actually a good time to talk about this because Amazon just announced their annual prime day one of their biggest sales events basically Black Friday in the middle of July so tonight let's look at the warehouse part of the logistics industry and the people who work inside them because the margins are razor thin and the tiniest details can make a huge difference at Walmart's most recent shareholder meeting their CEO brought two workers on stage to show off how a minor change that they've made to packing trucks was going to pay off in a big way for investors we had this two step stool in the trailers and guess what it's kind of clunky it's a little bit big and it's a little bit heavy so Fransisco does this job every day and figures out that if we change to this stool which is lighter and easier to move around people will actually use it all the time and we're doing a much better job of cubing out the trailers it's going to save us at least thirty million dollars this year can you thank these two for us really appreciated give these guys a war Walmart thank you which is of course a small round of applause to hearty claps on the back and the requests that they get this off the stage and get back to work so there is a lot that goes on behind the scenes at warehouses far from customers eyes because many retail giants subcontract to lesser-known outside companies take this warehouse in Memphis it shipped phones for Verizon but it wasn't run by Verizon it was owned and operated by a company called XPO one of the bigger names in logistics and workers there said conditions could be brutal just last year they complained about extreme heat the worker said in the complaint there's no air conditioning in most of the metal warehouse on citation drive and contended inside temperatures can get dangerous our hot days but OSHA spokesperson said there's no requirements for air conditioning in any tennessee workplace that sounds terrible although I will say a chicken shouldn't really be feeling anything when you put it in an oven if it does for the love of God check your recipe you may have missed some key steps and heat is just the start here the New York Times reported that a woman actually died of cardiac arrest at the warehouse and a co-worker told reporters she witnessed that woman telling managers that she was short of breath and asking for an extra break which her supervisor denied not just that other workers said managers then told them to keep moving boxes as her body lay on the floor now legally here is why I have to tell you that XPO takes issue with The Times's story they denied that the worker who died told her supervisor she was feeling unwell and said the company did allow workers to leave for the day after that worker died although I simply don't know how that squares with this actual post on Facebook from that day where an XP our employee wrote they're really trying to make us work and this lady's dead body still in the building XPO also insisted to us that they conducted a full independent investigation that showed just how wrong The Times his story was so we said great can we see the report and they told us that the investigation had be run by someone who used to work for Michelle Obama and we said great can we see the report and they said no because and I quote there is no written report because it was given to them verbally so which account should we believe here expose spoken word report the details of which may disappear into the wide chasm of history in the grand tradition of oral storytelling or this written contemporaneous account from someone who was there about having to work around a co-worker's dead body it's really up to you the lawyers say it's up to you I asked the lawyers can it be up to me and they said no and I said because if it was I choose the face book one and they said well you definitely can't say that so I'm not going to and at this point we should probably turn to Amazon because they've increased competitive pressure across the industry as a former executive explains they set the bar high there is a promise of speed which is completely sacred when you receive an email message from Amazon saying that the item was in a way and you will get it tomorrow that promise has to be met at any cost Wow at any cost it's a little weird to hear someone treat my stupid Amazon purchases with such urgency because you're not delivering diphtheria medicine to a remote Alaskan village here you're delivering novelty Horsehead masks to people who frankly forgotten they ordered them till they showed up and look Amazon is not the worst actor in this industry they generally don't subcontract out their warehouses and they made headlines last year for raising workers base pay to $15 an hour but being not the worst is a low low bar and they have huge influence here when Amazon announced earlier this year that they'd be making one day shipping standard for Prime members Walmart immediately hinted that it would do the same basically Amazon is the industry trendsetter that the Michael Jackson of shipping they're the best of what they do everyone tries to imitate them and nobody who learns a third thing about them is happy that they did because the conditions in their warehouses are not nearly as fun as their ads like to suggest they can be physically draining as this seasonal worker in his 70s will tell you I had a scanner in my hand and the scanner would tell me to go pick up a box of Oreo cookies and the purple section I would go there and then I'd get another scan go pick up some STP oil and the green section which is the UPS inside of the warehouse which the warehouse is two football fields or three football fields so I would end up on a ten-hour shift walking 15 to 17 miles a day yeah and watching that might stick in your head the next time that you're sitting there or during next day delivery of Oreos do you really need them that fast probably not right how about a 72 pack of Tide Pods again our dog you know what about this costume that makes you catalogue a sharpshooter well here it does get more complicated doesn't it your cat could be a little cowboy then you can call him Butch Cassidy and you might want that to happen as soon as possible it's not an emergency no but it's also not unimportant and if you're thinking well that sounds tough but maybe that job just wasn't for that man you should know the rate at which Amazon has workers pick items can exhaust workers of any age Pickers like Steven Abadie Lee walk 15 miles or more each day to retrieve as many as 200 items an hour a handheld device dictates every move and counts down tasks to the second would say I need to be in aisle 54 get this item and then suddenly you're going to aisle 72 and you have 10 seconds Abadie lee struggled to keep up and like many was eventually let go I would get out of work get home and sit on the couch and my body would just quit on me right then you're a guy in your early 20s yeah and you're still wiped out I was dead at the end of the day look no one should be in their prime in the morning and then dead at the end of the day unless they are a mayfly and mayflies are just not spending their one day on earth in an Amazon warehouse because of course they're not they know the precious value of time they're spending their day doing a mountain of cocaine and far past a clip bass die fast hashtag Yolo but by many accounts Amazon operates at a relentless pace and as one youtuber who's worked in an Amazon warehouse will tell you even when they offer a reward system the incentives can be a bit of a slap in the face they would be like you know though everyone's rates are really really low and we need to get these up so we're gonna have a power outerwear you guys have to push and push and push as hard as you can and the winner get the prize for pushing and pushing through the pain guess what the damn prize was hey dollar gift card to in-n-out burger yeah I get why that was annoying because you know what's better than a ten dollar gift card to in-n-out burger just ten dollars it's like an in and out gift card but it can be used for things that don't come animal style plus plus over the years amazon has faced criticism from workers over their willingness to accommodate basic human needs like using the bathroom seven lawsuits have been filed against them by pregnant workers who say they will refuse longer bathroom breaks and fewer continuous hours on their feet now legally here is where I have to tell you that amazon says it's accommodated thousands of pregnant associates and more generally they say associates are allowed to use the toilet whenever needed but that simply doesn't square with many accounts from workers both in news reports and many many first-person testimonials on YouTube if you go to the bathroom during your break you're gonna have to wait in line and you're not gonna make your numbers for that period and you're gonna have someone come and talk to you if you're far away from the bathroom it's gonna take you a long time just to get there use it and get back now your rate has plummeted unless you really really really have to just hold it until you have your lunch break because it will mess up your rate and they will find any excuse to fire you and that's just not a good system for multiple reasons including the fact that when people shortened their time in the bathroom they don't shorten the bathroom part they shorten the hand-washing part so the next time you order something online it's probably safe to assume it's been packed by your in soaked hands and if you're thinking it can seem like Amazon barely sees their workers as human you're not alone just watch this interviewer have that exact thought in real-time the number of items they pick per hour the number of steps they take its measured and when they're not as productive as their colleagues there they're put on alert there's a line of other people and a lot of these communities waiting to take jobs they're almost like robots except they're obviously human beings yeah yeah I could honestly watch that go figure out what things are almost like four hours giraffes are almost like horses except they're obviously stretchier Amazon is rolling out more and more robots in its warehouses increasingly working side by side with humans a relationship which isn't always seamless an automated machine like this one used by Amazon to move merchandise accidentally punctured a can of bear repellent remove all the toxic bear spray got into the building's air vents more than 50 workers complained about trouble breathing and a burning sensation in their eyes and throats yeah the workers were bear maced by a robot and Amazon says they've now changed how bear repellent is stored which is friendly just as well because their workers have been bare most more than once in 2015 a Texas Fire Department responded to an emergency caused by a robot running over a can of bear repellent so in 50 years time when humanity is caught in the crossfire of the great bear versus robot war remember robots fired the first shot and they fired twice and it's not just exhaustion or the potential of being bare most reports have found numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries which isn't even surprising remember this is a physically demanding job and you might hope that a labor union could step in to push for more protections but amazon has actively fought against that happening even producing a union busting training video for managers which leaked onto the Internet last fall we are not anti-union but we are not neutral either we will boldly defend our direct relationship with associates as best for the associate the business and our shareholders we do not believe unions are in the best interest of our customers our shareholders are most importantly our associates our business model is built upon speed innovation and customer obsession things that are generally not associated with Dean Ian's yeah customer obsession is not generally associated with unions because it's a very creepy phrase and not one that I really want to be associated with any brand much less one that he's so desperate to put microphones inside my house the more you look at Amazon the more you realize that its convenience comes with a real cost because think about it we used to have to drive to stores to buy things now those things are brought directly to us and there's somehow cheaper that didn't just happen with a clever algorithm it happened by creating a system that squeezes the people lowest on the ladder hard and all the while the man behind Amazon is now worth a hundred and eighteen billion dollars more than anyone else in the world he is so rich he seems to actually think that this is a reasonable answer to a question about what he plans to do with his personal wealth the only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel so first 118 billion dollars it's not anybody's winnings it is a computer error in capitalism but it is true base ops is spending a billion dollars a year on his personal space exploration company blue aura and I'm not saying that billionaires playing space games is a Freudian issue anyone can talk about how Rockets look like dicks I will just say this is his actual rockets which looks even more like a dick than you expected it to it has a head of billion dollars a year that's just a drop in the bucket of a fortune that Bezos can't seem to figure out how to spend meanwhile some of his employees seem to be working themselves to exhaustion Amazon has driven the whole warehouse industry to move constantly faster and faster on already low margins and sure the fact that it pays at least $15 an hour is nice but raising workers wages is only part of the equation here making sure these jobs are safe and that the pace is sustainable is critical too and if Bezos has enough money to fund his space dicks in perpetuity it isn't a question of whether he can improve working conditions for his employees it's just a question of if he wants to and if he doesn't want to at the very least Amazon should present a more realistic picture of what their promises cost the workers who make it all happen have you ever wondered how Amazon gets your packages to you so quickly we do it with two things amazing technology and amazing people every day thousands of items arrive and Shawn goes to find them tell us about yourself Shawn I pick up products and I'm a horrible dancer oh that's fun can we see some moves oh I've already walked 12 miles today I said dance [Music] oh and that's Ryan he moves items around the fulfillment center I don't have time to go to the bathroom so I'm just gonna stand here and wet myself good for you Ryan all right can't do it while you watch okay okay all right all right seriously Lisa here packs your stuff into boxes don't you Lisa can't talk now I'm running behind in my units per hour oh it's okay just tell us a little bit about yourself please mom kids nobody cares about your kids leave so you're falling behind faster faster faster you no you this lavishing ways scans your box and attaches a label all in like one second and this is Alberto well my friends call me al and I gotta say I really think a union would help address some of the systemic problems that works oh there's phrase finally Jackie hugs every box no I don't oh maybe just this one okay because a lot of people want this job okay one day a robot will hug boxes and we'll be done with this whole charade yeah I get it but until then hug the Box Jackie um good now kiss it I don't want I said kiss the box every day hundreds of thousands of packages are shipped to your front door and that's all because of our amazing associates happy prime day everyone [Music] Amazon try not to think about it you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 11,946,780

Rating: 4.8498731 out of 5

Keywords: last week tonight warehouses, john oliver warehouses, last week tonight amazon, john oliver amazon

Id: d9m7d07k22A

Length: 21min 18sec (1278 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 01 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Munkeyspunk92]

FUCK XPO Logistics. I run shipping for a warehouse and they will do shit like give $10,000 worth of our product to a random location because they couldn't find the Bill of Lading thst goes with it. That's if they don't fucking break it first.

[u/VC420]

This kind of reminds me of some twisted social psychology experiment/study that i don't remember the name

Clicking a button to get something faster, but in turn hurt someone else

[u/chaosfire235]

The working conditions are why I'm not too worried about the rapid implementation of robots and automation. If you're being ordered to scramble around football fields worth of warehouse to meet quotas at the expense of your own body, to the point that bathroom breaks, injury and deaths shouldn't stop you, isn't it better for a robot to take over that?

[u/RoyisOurBoy]

Here is the response from Amazon's svp of worldwide operations, Dave Clark;

As a fan of the show, I enjoy watching John make an entertaining case for the failings of companies, governments and most recently - Mount Everest. But he is wrong on Amazon. Industry-leading $15 minimum wage and comprehensive benefits are just one of many programs we offer...

We are proud of the safe, quality work environment in our facilities - so much so that we offer tours to the public, ages six and up. But unlike over 100,000 other people this year, John and his producers did not take us up on our invitation to tour one of our facilities.

If they had they would have met the amazing people who work in our operations. People whose passion and commitment are what makes the Amazon customer experience special. I am proud of our team and to suggest they would work in an environment like the one portrayed is insulting.

[u/SwingAndDig]

There is power in a union.

[u/milk4all]

Just wanna say blue collar world can be rough, I had no idea I was supposed to quit over it. I'm almost glad this is happening because, thanks to Amazon and others, it's on a scale large enough to make headlines. I've worked mostly manufacturing, but also a sawmill, fees additive packing plant and a fertilizer plant. All very, very demanding with tons of washouts, most have a real risk of exposeure to hazardous materials (but you know, like not officially of course). In my experiences they were tolerated because due to these factors, they paid extremely well (except the sawmill, fuck Prayer Oak). But also in my experience I at least felt a kind of brotherhood and bond in those jobs where we all respected each other for our grit and capabilities, and I seriously doubt these massive warehouses give even that much to their laborers.

[u/rotodash]

You love it.

[u/Ocean_Synthwave]

Feels like I'm reading The Jungle again. Upton Sinclair would have a field day with this.

[u/adamb10]

I don't have time yet to watch this but I'll get my obligatory fuck grocery warehouses in. As a truck driver, I've sat for hours waiting to get unloaded at these hell holes. I was at a Kroger warehouse for 8 hours once. Then another time I delivered to a food service warehouse in Oklahoma city. My appt was for 1230pm. They didn't put me in the dock until 12am and I was not unloaded until 4-5am.