Amazon’s pandemic

Business Daily

BBC

Business

4.4 • 816 Ratings

🗓️ 15 April 2020

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amazon sees itself as providing an essential service during the coronavirus pandemic, but staff at its huge network of warehouses are worried they’re being put at risk. Ed Butler speaks to William Stolz, a picker at an Amazon fulfilment centre in Minnesota in the US, and to Christy Hoffman, general secretary of the UNI Global Union, about why some workers feel unsafe. Logistics analyst Marc Wulfraat discusses Amazon’s response and what it means for their reputation. And Frank Foer, author of World Without Mind: The Existential Threat of Big Tech, explains why Amazon’s future beyond the pandemic remains uncertain.

(Photo: A package is processed at an Amazon fulfilment centre in Sosnowiec, Poland. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello there. I'm Ed Butler. Welcome to Business Daily from the BBC. Coming up, amidst the pandemic,
0:07.0	why is one online retailer Amazon facing workplace protests? The pace of work is too high. There's too
0:14.4	many people in the building. Amazon's more concerned about expanding its power, its influence,
0:19.6	its market share during this period
0:21.3	than it is about protecting workers. And will the shutdown make or break this tech and retail giant?
0:27.8	If the rest of the retail world is kind of swept into the dustbin of history, Amazon will be
0:34.6	standing there still the reigning supreme retail power.
0:39.0	Cutting Amazon down to size.
0:41.1	That's all to come in Business Daily from the BBC.
0:47.3	How many cases we've got?
0:51.8	That's more than enough.
0:53.7	Close a building there.
0:55.5	Close a building.
0:57.9	That's the sound of workers at one Amazon warehouse in New York last month.
1:03.2	Protesting over what they said was a lack of concern over the welfare of its workers in the current pandemic.
1:10.0	What they're doing here? Nothing. Nothing. What they're doing here?
1:11.5	Nothing.
1:12.1	Nothing.
1:13.1	What they're doing about our health?
1:14.8	Nothing.
1:16.3	Well, for many people stuck at home these days, Amazon has been a lifeline when many other retailers have closed their doors and the company is casting itself as an essential service these days.
1:26.2	But the increased demand on this one company
	...

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