An Open Letter to Dave Clark, Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations and Customer Service of Amazon.com!
September 3rd, 2018- Labor Day!
An Open Letter to Dave Clark, Senior Vice President for Worldwide Operations and Customer Service of Amazon.com!
From Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby) an Amazon.com Tier I Associate at the Ontario 6 Fulfillment Center in Moreno Valley, ca!
“The power of the powerless!”
-Vaclav Havel
My name is Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby) and I am one of many workers who labor in the Ontario 6 Fulfillment Center in Moreno Valley, ca. I am writing this Open Letter in response to what I’ve read lately concerning Amazon.com and the treatment of the workers in Amazon’s warehouses worldwide! I speak for those who are too timid, too busy, too indifferent; I speak for those who’ve been numbed into the before mentioned “indifference” due the forces which control Amazon and its operations! Personally, I have no such inclination to stay silent for whatever reason!
Laughingly, Amazon.com has responded to claims made by Senator Bernie Sanders that the company doesn’t pay fair wages to lower-level workers like myself! More to this! TheAmazon maintains that the “so-called” poor working conditions in its Fulfillment Centers simply do not exist! That the Vermont senator has been calling attention to the company and founder Jeff Bezos for months, suggesting that some Amazon workers have to rely on food stamps while their boss’s wealth increases by millions of dollars each day and this he sees as a ridicules farce!
In return, Senator Sanders had this to say while laughing out loud: ‘This is what a rigged economy is all about,’ he wrote on Twitter. Most recently Sanders encouraged Amazon workers to share their experiences working for the company! He demands to know whether they have needed public assistance such as food stamps or Medicaid.
Listen! In a company blog post published recently, Amazon responded to Sanders’s accusations calling them “inaccurate and misleading.” The company claimed in the post that it has been in communication with Sanders’ office and has offered the senator a tour of its warehouse facilities which Sanders has not yet seen.
In an extremely “lame” statement, the Amdroid called a company Propaganda Specialist or PS unequivocally stated: ‘Instead, Senator Sanders continues to spread misleading statements about pay and benefits,’ Amazon wrote. The senator’s attacks on Amazon started earlier this year after warehouse workers shared stories with ‘Business Insider’ of urinating in trash cans out of fear they would take too long in the bathroom as management attempted to shorten while timing their breaks. Months later, in July, a ‘Guardian’ investigation revealed multiple cases of Amazon workers losing their homes due to workplace accidents that left them unable to work or receive compensation.
In its blog post, Amazon claimed that full-time associates in its Fulfillment Centers make more than $15-per-hour including cash, stock, and incentive bonuses. ‘We encourage anyone to compare our pay and benefits to other retailers,’ the company wrote.
Meanwhile, the ‘Guardian’ reports that Amazon has gone as far as to pay “FC Ambassadors”—or, employees at Fulfillment Centers to defend the company on Twitter!
On his end, Senator Sanders will introduce a bill on Sept. 5 demanding that large corporations cover the full cost of federal assistance received by employees: ‘At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, the gap between the very rich and everyone else continues to grow wider,’ Sanders wrote in a statement reported by the ‘Daily Beast.’ ‘That is why I am introducing legislation in September to demand that Mr. Bezos and other billionaires get off welfare and start paying their workers a living wage.’
On Wednesday, Senator Bernie Sanders will introduce legislation aimed firmly at large companies that have taken advantage of “Corporate Welfare” by underpaying its employees. Amazon and Walmart in particular have bore the brunt of the Senator’s criticisms and the rhetoric has become increasingly heated over the past few days.
In retaliation while stamping “their” little feet and crying in “their” beers, Amazon officials accused Sanders of issuing “inaccurate and misleading” statements as he called the company out concerning its warehouse conditions. Senator Sanders countered with: ‘Amazon’s Fulfillment Center wages are “absurd!”’ To be certain, they are!
Senator Sanders shouted to TheAmazon! ‘Thousands of Amazon employees are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing because their wages are too low,” Sanders in a fury! ‘Including 1 out of 3 of its workers in Arizona and 2,400 in Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to ‘The New Food Economy’. ‘Bottom line: the taxpayers of this country should not have to subsidize employees at a company owned by Mr. Bezos who is worth $155 billion. That is absurd.’
Sanders is far from the first person to raise issue with Amazon Fulfillment Center conditions. Stories abound from current and former employees for years. CEO Jeff Bezos, who has been front and center in Sanders’ criticism recently, told the press, ‘I am very proud of our working conditions, and I am very proud of the wages that we pay.’ But you don’t really work in these slaughterhouse, meat-grinders known as Fulfillment Centers now do you Mr. Jeff Bezos! Nor for that matter, do you live on $15 dollars an hour! Senator Sanders was certainly correct when he said: “Absurd!”
Amazon.com and Sen. Bernie Sanders continue to spar over working conditions at Amazon warehouses after the senator called for legislation that would require large employers to reimburse the government for food stamps, Medicaid and other federal assistance received by their employees.
Truly! Amazon has actually published a rare blog post rebutting the senator’s claims that thousands of Amazon employees rely on federal benefits to make ends meet. Those figures are ‘inaccurate and misleading,’ the company Amdroid said ‘because they include temporary workers as well as those who choose to work part time.’ Agreed! “Absurd!”
The Seattle-based tech giant had this to say! TheAmazon Amdroid please! ‘While Senator Sanders plays politics and makes misleading accusations, we are expending real money and effort up-skilling (not a “real” word by the way) people! We have been in regular contact with his office and have offered several opportunities for Senator Sanders and his team to tour one of our fulfillment centers (FCs). To date he has still not seen an FC for himself.’
A few hours later, Sanders responded with a press release of his own. The senator said he had requested to visit an Amazon warehouse in Wisconsin in July, but ‘unfortunately, Amazon could not accommodate me then.’ Sanders added that he is planning to visit a facility in Chester, Va., next month.
In an effort to shift the narrative on warehouse workers, Amazon’s started paying employees, real money by the way and not those ridicules Amazon Dollars to respond to criticism on Twitter with positive stories about their experiences. Dave Clark, not of the former British band ‘The Dave Clark Five’, Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide operations and Customer Service is actually begging employees to share their “positive” experiences with the Sanders team.
Listen to this one as Clark states: ‘I encourage you and your teams to let him know what you think,’ Clark said in an email to the operations leadership team, which Amazon made, public, as part of its post. ‘He only asks if you are on food stamps, but I hope he would be interested in hearing that you’re not as well. Please feel free to tell him your truth, and encourage all employees in your buildings to do the same.’
Now ask yourself this question? Could a person like Dave Clark, Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide operations and Customer Service live and care for himself and his family on $15 dollars an hour? Mr. Dave Clark, Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide operations and Customer Service, I challenge you to come here to Fulfillment Center Ontario 6 in Moreno Valley, California and tell me and my co-workers to “our” faces that (1) We actually, according to you, make enough money working forty hours a week in one of “your” Fulfillment Centers to provide, just the mere basics we’re speaking about, for ourselves and our families?
(2) That we should live in anxiety week-in, week-out due to “your” monstrous system called ‘ADAPT FEEDBACK better known as RATE wherein missing a productivity mark by merely 0.9% can get you writing-up and walked-to-the door brutally enforced by Amazonian Management or AMs and “their” HR Hit Squads who cowardly follow “your” grotesque “Orwellian” modus operandi which was NOT created for efficiency nor for the “bottom-line” but rather modeled for the elimination of unwanted warehouse workers who’ve been “generated” or better yet, “breed” as a means to ‘warehouse’ Amazon shares which’ll never make it to the “open” market! Personally! I think your shareholders’ not to mention the US government, the SEC in particular; would be interested in “your” little scheme!
Mr. Dave Clark, still not of the former British band ‘The Dave Clark Five,’ Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide operations and Customer Service! I challenge you to come here to Ontario 6 in Moreno Valley, California and tell me and my co-workers to “our” faces that (3) We have dependable, unswerving futures for ourselves and our loved ones!
(4) Tell us all at one of your “ridicules” Stand-ups that “your” company can’t “afford” to pay us a living wage, which by the way is $24 dollars an hour here in southern California; that is, with a straight-face! Right! I forgot! You’re one of those Plastic Persons I’ve spoken about in earlier! But I do imagine you’d manage to “straight-face” it somehow!
Mr. Dave Clark, not of the former British band ‘The Dave Clark Five,’ but rather Amazon’s Senior Vice President for Worldwide operations and Customer Service! I challenge you to come here to Ontario 6 in Moreno Valley, California and tell me and my co-workers to “our” faces that (5) we actually have value as to you and TheAmazon as “Real” living human beings! Unfortunately! I do believe you’d pull that off as well; plastic face and all!
One last thing (until next time! And there will be a “great” many next-times!) before I close! Yesterday I posted an Open Letter to the Senior Outbound Operations Manager named Travis Autry, a “real” Plastic Person if there ever was one! But than, Amazon has indoctrinated him just as they’ve programmed you as well (George Orwell would be proud)!
In this Open Letter I took offense with what’s called ADAPT FEEDBACK or better known as (RATE)! I basically stated that ‘The workforce in Amazon’s warehouses are being subjected to a system of intimidation whereas from week to week one never knows if one will survive an algorithmic metric which does not see human effort, we in fact work our hearts out for this company, but one which seeks failure in the percentage point!
‘We are scored not on our efforts! Not on our merits as employees who are always there, on time; ready, willing and able to give our very best for the betterment of the company, its shareholders and most importantly, its customers! We are given a percentage goal with a mandate: Make your numbers or else! And it’s this “or else” which must stop! And stop it will!
‘In reality, I do not see Amazon.com giving up on its “model of inefficiency” as I put it: Never! In which case, they must be shown a wisdom demonstrated in a lesson learned and changes made for the benefit of the before mentioned: Workers, customers, shareholders and the company at large! And how ever shall they, TheAmazon, come to this point of wisdom?
‘It will be taught to them by a united force call “WORKERS!” When I wrote on the VOA board: ‘End ADAPT FEEDBACK better known as RATE now! If management won’t, we the workers, will!’ I never intended this to be hyperbole, an exaggeration of what I wrote and its meaning! This is what I meant: We the workers will no longer stand for this kind of de-humanizing treatment displayed within this system!
‘What must be done? We, the workers must RESIST this structure of intimidation, this terrorism which pressures and bullies all of us into conformity! I am here to say: This will not longer be successful as we the workers will push back and end this recurring nightmare! But it must be asked: How?
‘By becoming united, worldwide, FC after FC will awaken to say: “No more!” We are going to stand on End ADAPT FEEDBACK better known as RATE now! This will be our rallying cry as we convince worker after worker that they too can stand and fight! But how can a simple Tier I Associate stand and fight?
‘By simply standing up and walking out! We are planning a guerrilla style engagement worldwide as Amazon management will never know when or where the next ‘Stand-up & Walk-out’ will occur! If need be, we will bring the wheels of production to a grinding halt! Envision the chaos that will ensue as the Monolith known as Amazon.com crumples in the sand on which it was built!
‘Can this really happen? Yes! It already has reached the tipping point where the workers are so frustrated, so frightened of losing their employment; so living with anxiety always in fear that fighting back is the only option left! Amazon, you are a failure because you think so little of the quality which is known as “human” to be something of the highest concern! And this does not mean only “your” workers who are exploited by such systems of intimidation! It means all customers who’ll never receive the service which they deserve as paying consumers! Nor will the shareholders who expect a fair profit from their investment which will never materialize because of the way in which Amazon conducts itself in the marketplace! Neither for that matter will those third party vendors who put their investment as well as their trust in a company which sees only streaming data but never living flesh and blood; body and soul, being and becoming!’
In which case, I’d like to clarify a few points concerning Amazon’s method of operation: (1) This system was never intended to be a model for efficiency, hardly! It is a tool of intimidation created to drive the workforce faster and faster in a Tayloristic managerial systematic method of kill or be killed; a neo-Darwinian effort to keep those numbers coming! We fight, “gladiatorial style” as John Rossman says, in an effort to keep, what I call, “our stinky” jobs!
(2) Now, in looking at what I’ve termed to be “scored not on our efforts” I’d like to suggest that the ADAPT FEEDBACK or (RATE) system is mathematically flawed at its core whereas the system in order to be “valid” must have every single “variable” included in its calculation or it can never be called “valid!” Furthermore! In order for this to be accomplished, every single item scanned be it inbound, outbound, ICQA; must. by its very nature or “validity” be re-calculated in order for this to happen which possible cannot!
I actually expressed this very formula to a sitting General Manager in a Birthday Round-Table a few years ago! In utter shock, I actually, in a group of twenty or more workers, heard him agree 100% with my evaluation. But here’s what he said: “What else do we have?” I wanted to laugh and to cry at the same time as visions of friends and co-workers sent packing (excuse the pun) with their financial means to care for themselves and their families taken away because of a God damned percentage to goal or curve which has not substance or validity whatsoever! You people are monsters!
(3) ADAPT FEEDBACK or (RATE) does not serve the customer, our shareholders, the company in general, and most certainly, we the workers who are being chopped left and right for the main purpose of: Taking “our” shares received upon hiring but not vesting until two years of employment with the company! And what happens to these shares you might ask? They’re “warehoused” whereas those shares would be sold by most of the Associates but they never make it to market (excuse the pun once again); a violation of SCE laws, rules and regulations and so I’m certain!
Or as I put it in my Monday, September 3rd blog (Don’t Say the “M” Word!): ‘ADAPT FEEDBACK better known as RATE wherein missing a productivity mark by merely 0.9% can get you writing-up and walked-to-the door brutally enforced by Amazonian Management or AMs and “their” HR Hit Squads or HRHS who cowardly follow “your” grotesque “Orwellian” modus operandi which was NOT created for efficiency nor for the “bottom-line” but rather modeled for the elimination of unwanted warehouse workers who’ve been “generated” or better yet, “breed” as a means to ‘warehouse’ Amazon shares which’ll never make it to the “open” market!’ Quote/unquote!
(4) Simply put! In order to manage us, and so you believe, you must first dominate us! Why else put in a place a system which simply doesn’t work! ADAPT FEEDBACK better known as (RATE) does not speed production up! It in fact slows it down! Workers moving faster than they’re able constantly make mistakes which cost time and money because the entire process must be done over and over again! Are you getting it? Profit! Or what else are we actually in business for? Our health? Not at Amazon.com! Hey! Please come down here to Ontario 6 and I’ll show you exactly what’s taking place in the FC chain!
Look! The waste and mismanagement of people and resources; the very inefficiency of it all must come to an end! The customers deserve, demand, the best serve possible! And believe it or not, that’s what will make the difference when the competition catches up with Amazon’s data systems, technological know-how, delivery infrastructure and all the rest: Who’ll give the best service? And that will come down to who has the best workers! And that ain’t TheAmazon because Amazon’s in the business of constantly running workers in and out of the FC chain! Stupid I tell you! Absolutely stupid!
Now here this! I could go on and on as to your abject total failure to run a tight, efficient system! And oh by the way; I can say this because Amazon’s e-commerce, its very bread and butter, is constantly hemorrhaging capital (free cash flow’s in the toilet)! And there’s only one thing that’ll get the ball rolling in the right direction: End ADAPT FEEDBACK better known as RATE now!
I’ll tell you all plain! Amazon cannot keep operating in this manner! The market will correct itself one day! Shares prices will fall as inflation sticks its ugly head into play! A crash or market correction’s coming and Amazon and its dismal, it’d call it “wretched” inability to operate as a lean, mean, online retail machine; its surplus dysfunction will doom us all; especially those middle-management-minions who’ve put so must trust in TheAmazon! What a waste!
To close! I must repeat myself from yesterday’s Open Letter and why not? ‘We’re all in this together as we see our wages cut or frozen! As the cost of living continues to climb soaring to the heights of absurdity! As we see our health and safety sacrificed to the gods of commerce who could care less whether we live or die! Where our existence as “workers” means nothing to those who control the “so-called” wealth of this planet! But they are wrong!
The wealth of this planet resides in the laugh of a child happily playing in a home built in communities which care for one another and the well being of each and every human person in them! The wealth of this planet is and I liken it to finale in the beautiful musical Les Miserbles, where the words of The Epilogue lyrics are sung by Eponine & Fantine to a dying Valjean: Take my hand, and lead me to salvation Take my love, for love is everlasting! And Valjean celebrates his death with: And remember the truth that once was spoken To love another person is to see the face of God!
Truly, the wealth of “our” planet exists in a human heart filled with compassion and “not” in some God damned corporation bent on worldwide domination! Clearly, we as a species have lost “our” way! Together united, we can build a future where faithfully in sincerity we can also sing: Take my hand, and lead me to salvation Take my love, for love is everlasting! And remember the truth that once was spoken To love another person is to see the face of God! Genuinely, and in all honesty: This a machine cannot do!’
Sincerely,
Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby).