The Amazon tells employees in the warehouses who are hard‑working to think that they are “professional athletes» and to prepare their bodies for it, like someone training for a sports event. The comparison is an annoying euphemism for a company in which the injuries of workers are double those of the rest of the storage industry and which, according to information, workers often do not even take breaks to go to the toilet.
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The flyer tells employees that some of them will walk up to 20 kilometers (13 miles) throughout the day, burning an average of 400 calories per hour. It also suggests that workers prepare for an athlete's life and make changes to their diet and sleep schedule, as well as ensure they stay hydrated throughout the day by monitoring the color of their urine. Additionally, it continues with advice telling them to buy shoes at the end of the day when their feet are swollen so they can purchase the proper size to avoid blisters and tightness – advice known to long-distance runners or multi‑day hikers.
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One thing Amazon doesn’t mention is that athletes train for an event that takes place on a specific date. Athletes don’t compete every day and have time to rest and recover between competitions. The comparison becomes even more ridiculous when you look at what a professional athlete’s day is really like: significant warm-up time is spent to avoid injury, training may only be a few hours a day, there is time to rest or even nap, and significant effort is spent on nutrition. Apparently Amazon warehouse workers don’t have professional nutritionists and/or chefs to take care of their nutritional needs. If an employee wants to cover the calories they are expected to burn in a shift, they would have to eat nearly 40 apples or over 1,000 baby carrots. Amazon says it tries to provide employees with healthy snacks, but that’s not really reassuring.
In contrast to real athletes, many Amazon workers do not have the background to do such physical labor. It is therefore not surprising that the injury rates of Amazon employees are quite high: workers in Amazon warehouses had almost double the number of serious injuries compared to other warehouse workers in 2020.
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Amazon told Motherboard that it withdrew the flyer immediately after its creation, but the employee who provided it to the media said it had been there since November.
If Amazon wants its employees to think of themselves as “athletes,” the solution isn’t wellness programs or having their urine color checked. Instead, it should let them work at a reasonable pace and provide them with the support and staff to keep them healthy. Coaches don’t seek to get the most out of athletes just to throw them out if they get injured.
Source of information: theverge.com
