Revealed: Amazon linked to trafficking of workers in Saudi Arabia

[Fresh Water Falling]

Source: Guardian

Pramod Acharya and Michael Hudson
Tue 10 Oct 2023 05.00 EDT

Dozens of contract workers at Amazon warehouses say they were tricked into toiling and living in grueling, squalid conditions

Momtaj Mansur wanted to go home to his mom and his brother and the pastures of Nepal’s southern plains. He felt like a prisoner, he says, in a roach-infested bunkhouse in Saudi Arabia, out of work, hungry and deep in debt. The 23-year-old had come to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, in 2021 to work for one of the world’s biggest companies: Amazon.

Instead of his dream job, he says, he found low pay and misery. Amazon managers berated him, he says, for being too slow as he hustled across a vast two-story warehouse, grabbing iPhones and other items ordered by customers across the Arabian peninsula.

Then in May 2022, he says, he and many of his Nepali co-workers were abruptly let go from their jobs at the Amazon warehouse. They were 2,400 miles from home with no wages and little food.

Mansur says he pleaded with the Saudi labor supply company that held their employment contracts and had placed them in what amounted to temporary positions at Amazon: if there was no more work, let them return to Nepal. The Saudi firm, he says, demanded he make a terrible choice. He could stay in a place that, for him, was “like a hell”. Or he could push his family back in Nepal deeper into destitution by paying a $1,300 exit fee, a penalty for leaving before his contract was done. “I told them: either kill us or send us home, but don’t give us so much pain,” he says.

Momtaj Mansur is one of dozens of current and former workers who claim they were tricked and exploited by recruiting agencies in Nepal and labor supply firms in Saudi Arabia and then suffered under harsh conditions at Amazon’s warehouses.


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/oct/10/amazon-trafficking-links-claims-saudi-arabia-workers-abuses

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Yep, sounds about right for Bezos.

[2naSalit]

1. Saudis have...

Always abuse immigrant workers. That's why jeff is their friend.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Being "linked to" something is pretty weak tea.

I'm "linked to" all kinds of stuff. The distinction will get lost in the deluge of outrage.

The article says the Nepali immigrants worked for a "Saudi labor supply company that held their employment contracts and had placed them in what amounted to temporary positions at Amazon ..."

The questions now are what did Amazon know, and when did it know it?

Full disclosure: I do not own stock in Amazon. I haven't bought anything from them in years. I own a few Kindle Fires.

[Old Okie]

4. Amazon

Too many click bait titles recently. OP did not actually show any link to Amazon other than putting their name in the title. No fan of Bezos or Amazon but this is not good; my mistake for clicking on it.

[Joinfortmill]

5. Amazon started out as a book seller...then it became this.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/10/25/a-hard-hitting-investigative-report-into-amazon-shows-that-workers-needs-were-neglected-in-favor-of-getting-goods-delivered-quickly/?sh=42c86e4e51f5

'...When you are running a far-flung global enterprise, employing over one million people, it's understandable that issues will arise. When you start to see a continual pattern, it's time to consider if the mistakes are purposely overlooked or if there is something else happening. A New York Times investigative report delved into allegations that Amazon has been systematically shortchanging workers on their paychecks....

There were heartbreaking stories of stopped disability payments, cars repossessed, the need to sell a wedding ring and mistaken firings due to the supposedly faulty programs. The investigative findings indicated that workers at facilities across the country had to contend with questionable payroll software that led to people with “medical problems and other life crises having been fired when the attendance software mistakenly marked them as no-shows.” It was reported, “Doctors’ notes vanished into black holes in Amazon’s databases. Employees struggled to even reach their case managers, wading through automated phone trees [that gave them the runaround].” ...

This isn’t the first time workers complained about how Amazon has mistreated them. A prior New York Times investigative piece reported on the difficult working conditions Amazon employees had to endure at a fulfillment warehouse in Staten Island, New York, during the Covid-19 pandemic. The piece contended that Bezos “discovered what he thought was another inefficiency worth eliminating: hourly employees who spent years working for the same company.” Sources claim that Bezos held a theory that workers expect raises, but at the same time, they become complacent over time, and don’t work as hard. Consequently, wages increase, while productivity declines...'

My words on my divorce from Amazon: Amazon practices aside (it's far worse for workers at Amazon facilities in other countries) which, in my opinion, should be enough for people to tell them to take a hike, is only part of the issue. I consider Prime nothing but a scam to get $139.00 annually from an estimated 162 plus millions of folks in the U.S.A. alone.

So, this year I began my divorce from Amazon. The first thing I did was not renew my Prime membership because, frankly, I never watched anything on it (almost anything offered with my Prime membership I can get free or much less with other apps.) As for the 'free' shipping that comes with my $139 a year Prime subscription, I consider that a bit of a scam, too. I began to compare pricing of items from Amazon to Walmart or Walgreens and I found that these other retailers did charge for shipping, but the total cost to me was about a dollar or two higher than Amazon with it's so called Prime and free shipping.

I don't buy enough items from Amazon to warrant paying a $139 annual fee for a service I don't use or don't need. I would need to purchase a lot of stuff at these other retailers to rack up $139 shipping fees. I also believe in free enterprise, completion and choices, so I'm ditching Amazon Prime. Just my opinion folks.

[Backseat Driver]

6. Oh the stories I could tell about abusive

discrimination against their own citizens by government contractors/sub-contractors on American government IT projects that weirdly ended prematurely in America at the height of bringing in foreign workers, sending American workers out the door, corporate mergers, contractors that fail to mention they are dba, etc...or initially flush with advances that might be scheduled should they win their only contract, but otherwise empty of projects in their upcoming barrel and ZERO funds for bench times or training.

[Skittles]

8. yup

I hear you.

[live love laugh]

7. Pretty early for the mandatory weekly anti-Amazon thread.