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The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp
Article

The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp

What the Future of Low-Wage Work Really Looks Like

Dave Jamieson
The Huffington Post, 2015
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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Eye Opening
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

In this sad account of a seasonal warehouse worker’s life and death at Amazon, reporter Dave Jamieson exposes one secret to Amazon’s success. He explains how temporary workers toil in warehouses through the holiday season, taking lower wages than permanent staff and collecting minimal benefits. This cautionary tale reveals that seasonal workers live in hope that they will earn permanent positions, when in fact Amazon will fire most of them. getAbstract recommends this article to anyone with an interest in workers’ rights, health and safety, or in how Amazon functions.

Summary

In January 2013, 29-year-old Jeff Lockhart Jr. had been working as a seasonal “picker” in an Amazon fulfillment center for two months. Previously laid off from his building-supply job when the company closed, the father of three found a position with the temp agency Integrity Staffing Solutions to cover the holiday period, the busiest time of the year for Amazon. Lockhart had performed well and he hadn’t been let go at the end of the season, so he believed a “conversion” to permanent work was imminent.

No one knows how quickly Lockhart was discovered after he collapsed in the middle of a night shift. As...

About the Author

Dave Jamieson is The Huffington Post’s labor reporter.

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