I went on an Amazon propaganda tour

In which I'm forced to confront a contradictions in my values

Dartford’s enormous Amazon warehouse.

POD! On this week’s YIMBY Pod, we talk to Michael Hill from Britain Remade about Manchester’s theory of growth, and what ‘Manchesterism’ should be. And Martin and I look into three new energy storage projects, and try to coin the nickname ‘The Electric Arsehole’ for one of them… Listen here, or wherever you get your pods.

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Last week, I did something I’ve never done before in the pursuit of journalism.

I went undercover.

Back in 2018, I read a fantastic book called Hired by James Bloodworth, which captures the emergence of the gig economy not by simply studying it, but by living it. In the book, James tells the story of how he got a job at an Amazon warehouse – or ‘Fulfilment Centre’ in company parlance – in Rugeley, Staffordshire, and he details what the experience of working there was like, as someone on the front line.

And frankly, it sounds horrible. He describes the precariousness of the job, how sick days counted against your performance, and how colleagues were permanently terrified of not meeting tough targets. He even claims to have heard stories of workers who would urinate in bottles, to avoid taking time out for toilet breaks.

But as a big fat bloke, what made me feel the most stress reading his account was his description of the enormous distances he was forced to walk every day, up and down the aisles of the warehouse, to retrieve the goods that customers had ordered.

Anyway, in the years that followed, thanks in part to James’s book, there was a surge of interest in working conditions at Amazon. In America, the book even piqued the interest of Bernie Sanders.

And the attention did appear to lead to changes in how the company does business. In fact, Amazon went on something of a PR blitz to try and restore its reputation, and today the company makes bold claims about how it has improved employee compensation and employment terms.

But the obvious question to ask is, has this actually made a difference? Is working at an Amazon warehouse any better today? That’s why I, like James Bloodworth, decided to go undercover.

And sure, I know what you’re thinking: Did I really get a job at an Amazon warehouse, like James did?

Er… No, I didn’t. Not only would that take ages, James’s book makes it sound like really hard work.

But I did do something that I, personally, consider equally as journalistically rigorous and impressive.

For the past few years, because of the criticisms, Amazon has been offering free public tours of its warehouses. So I signed up for one at my nearest Amazon warehouse – and crucially I didn’t tell them that I’m a journalist.

I mean, sure, they didn’t actually ask what I did for a living, but I think this still technically counts as undercover work, because I wasn’t just some random member of the public – I was a random member of the public with a blog.¹

And frankly, what I saw on my brave, hour-and-a-bit-long undercover investigation surprised me. So read on to find out what I saw on my Amazon propaganda tour.