new / news review ‘black friday michael schofield/wattie … · 2018-08-09 · michael...

NEWS

2 6 / NEWS REV I EW

Amazondelivers aspeedy replyAmazon said: “Amazon provides asafe and positive workplace withcompetitive pay and benefits. Weare proud to have been able tocreate several thousand newpermanent roles in our UK fulfilmentcentres over the last five years.“The safety and wellbeing of our

permanent and temporaryassociates is our No 1 priority. Allassociates receive health and safetyinformation as well as dedicatedsafety training on their first day andmust pass a safety test beforebeginning their first shift. Amazonhas 62% fewer injuries than othercompanies conducting warehousingactivities in the UK.“All permanent and temporary

associates start on £7.35 an hour orabove, regardless of age and £11 anhour and above for overtime.“Productivity targets are set

objectively, based on previousperformance levels achieved by ourworkforce. We support people whoare not performing to the levelsexpected with dedicated coaching tohelp them improve.“Amazon has found no evidence,

record or suggestion of Romanianwomen smuggling phones out ofthe centre in their vaginas.”

new iPhones. A group of Romanianwomen had been removing them fromthe packaging, concealing them in theirvaginas andwalking through securityundetected.Thewomen hadworn heavymetal

belts that were blamed if the alarmssounded. It was onlywhen onememberof the gang slipped up and forgot to wearher belt that all thewomenwere thensubjected to body searches. It is not clearwhat actionwas taken against them.As formaking history, I suppose it’s

true that for three brief weeks I played apart in the construction of a formidableempire. Just as the splendour of ancientEgypt was built on the backs of slaves,my back has done its bit for Amazon.

I assured him I desperately needed themoney as I had spent all mymoney atuniversity on booze and had left with athird-class degree and zero careerprospects. All lies of course.Next came induction daywhenwe

were facedwith a slew of Amazonpromotional videos inviting us to “Workhard, have fun,make history”.The inflatable Christmas reindeers

welcoming us to thewarehousewere afun touch, but the airport-style scannersin the entrance hall and the securityguardswhomanned themwere lessamusing. I later learnt theywere there fora reason.In recentmonths, I was told, the

company had detected several thefts of

to commit to themandatory overtime,shewas shown the door. I then becameone of only twowomen in the room.Three youngmen, who appeared to be

under the age of 30, toldme theywerereceiving out-of-work benefits and twoof them had criminal convictions. Yetboth sailed through the applicationprocess, despite warnings that wewouldundergo criminal background checks.Aweek later I befriended one of the

men, who said he had served time forpermanently disfiguring someone.I was conscious that I didn’t exactly

blend inwithmy home counties accent.At one point anotherworker said tome:“You’re a bit posh ... you’re not fromaround here, are you?”

uu Continued from page 25a panic attack after being persistentlytold bymanagers that shewas notmeeting her targets andmight be sacked.Days later I found that she had been givenher final formal warning andwas off tobe “retrained”. I never saw her again.I had been raised on a diet of science

fiction staples such as TheMatrix andWestworld and I couldn’t helpwonderingif she had ended her days plugged into amainframe for a software reboot.As Black Friday approached, the

warehouse descended intomaniacalchaos.Workers ignored the no-runningrule, racing up and down the aisles withtheir trolleys, some even improvisingthem into skateboards as they rushed topick items from overcrowded floor-levelbins or high-up shelves.Our goal was to beat the company

clock that timed themovement of itemsthrough the system. The constant race tomeet targets and avoid personal penaltiesproduced somany collisions betweenworkers and trolleys that people gave upapologising for bruising your shins orcrashing into your bins.Amanager insisted unswervingly that

health and safetywas “Amazon’s No 1priority” but admitted to us that injurieswere happening. His assurance that therewas nothing unreasonable about thedemands of our job needs to be comparedwith the experience of the first aider whotoldme the “targets were terrible” andwere responsible for workers “rushing”and ultimately getting hurt.I was injured three times inmy three

weeks at Amazon. Inmy first week Isuffered a cut tomy eyebrow caused by abook that flew off a top shelf when I tookout another item.

Amanager later suggested it wasbecause it had beenwronglywedged by astower, whomaywell have been underpressure tomeet his own shelf-stockingtargets.Later I injuredmy back after prolonged

hunching over the trolley. Finally apartially unsheathed knife that had beenput into an already overcrowded bin cutmy hand as I searched for another item.In this case a stower againwas blamed.

I would rather think of the stower asanother harried soul trying desperately tomeet performance targets.Who in Glasgow could possibly be

desperate enough— apart from a curiousreporter— to opt for such a low-paid jobwith such a torrid commute? Plenty ofthem, it soon turned out, lured bypromises of “fantastic incentives” and“good career prospects”.Days after I applied for the job, I had

foundmyself sitting in the dingy sideroom of the recruitment agency’sGlasgow office with about 15mostlymaleapplicants of varying ages andethnicities, including Asian and African.They didn’t seem to havemuch in

common, apart from their barelyconcealed expressions of resignation attheir not especially promising choice ofemployment.I spoke to one Scottish applicant who

appeared to bewoefully oblivious towhatthe job actually entailed. He explained hewas giving it a go “for a bit of extra cash”to boost his meagre student income.A female applicant, whowas Asian and

appeared to be in her late twenties,announced that shewas able toworkonly two or three shifts a week becauseshewas doing two other jobs, one ofthem at her husband’s business. Unable

MICHAEL SCHOFIELD/WATTIE CHEUNG

Amazon’s Dunfermline warehouse is the size of 14 football fields. During busy times, workers must fetch at least 75 items an hour

THE CONSTANT RACETO MEET TARGETSPRODUCED MANYCOLLISIONS BETWEENWORKERS AND TROLLEYS

‘Black Fridayneared, chaosdescended’

The odd thing about a Twitter stormis that it happens so quickly thatyou soon cannot quite rememberwhere it started.

Over the years I have had, onbalance, a good experiencewith Twitter:true, some nasty threats and grimmisogyny, butmuchmore friendshipand support.I tend to resort to it in those odd five

minutes when there is nothingmuchelse to do. And that is what happenedrecently, when I ended up in a scrapwith Arron Banks, the Ukip donor, ofwhom I have never beenmuch of anadmirer, but that is by the bye.As I recall, I just happened to spot

inmy timeline (retweeted, I assume),Banks’s pithy pronouncement: “Truethe Roman empire was effectivelydestroyed by immigration.”I woke up. I can take dodgy

pronouncements about the end of theRoman empire (it is not as if there is asingle cause, or as if it does not go onbeing debated). But the idea that it wascaused by “immigration” and so actsas a terrible warning against modernimmigration is not just bunkum, butdangerous bunkum.So I fired off a reply: “I think you all

need to do a bit more reading in Romanhistory before telling us what causedthe fall of Rome. Facts guys!”And it went on from there. Loads of

people piled in on both sides (I wasgrateful to several academic colleagues,students and JK Rowlingwho stood upto be counted, as well as to a whole array

of Twitter friends and acquaintances,old and new: thank you).Banks told us of his life-long love of

Roman history, which he had learnt atschool, how he hadmuch enjoyedGladiator, and that anyway (I amparaphrasing) academics likeme did nothave amonopoly on historicalinterpretation.To be fair to Banks, mansplainer

though he is, he was unfailingly politeand ended up judgingme “a sport”.But quite a few of his supporters werenot (and, let me confess, one or twoofminewere not entirely courteouseither).There was plenty of the relatively

overlookable “U Beard groupies rdisgusting” to some rather lessoverlookable interventions in thepenumbra of the debate, including apicture of amodel guillotine with acomment “more baskets needed” (I don’tthink I was the intended victim, butwhoever ...).And I suspect that “the days of your

ilk r numbered”, a phrase repeatedseveral times (where does it comefrom?),wasmeant prettyaggressively.What, if anything, comes

out of this?Well, there is arandomness to it. It wasprobably always going tobe quite big, but Rowling’s8.8m followers werecertainly a factor andmeant that it wasmorelikely to be picked up by the

When classics professorMary Beard found herself in a Twitter spat with aUkip donor over claims that migration led to the fall of Rome, trolls joinedin. The trouble is, she says, history can’t be condensed into 140 characters

any nuanced or complicated argumentat all. Twitter is ideal for mono-causes(it was all immigration, wasn’t it?), notfitted at all for complexity.I tried saying that even the idea of the

fall of the empire was problematic: if weare talking the east of the empire, thenit rolled on until 1453 (we call them“Byzantines”, but they called themselves“Romans”).But when it comes to deconstructing

the idea of “borders” and “barbarians”,and exploring the “Romanness” ofsome of those whom it becameconvenient to brand“foreign”, indeed themajor differences inthose apparentpolarities between

now and then, I am beaten if it has to behalf a sentence.In a way, of course, as the historian

TomHolland observed, it was rathercheering that people were joining in todiscuss a historical problem (though,honestly, it wasmore assertion thandiscussion). And I amwith Banks inbelieving that academics do not have amonopoly of historical interpretation.But in order to have an interpretationworth listening to, you do have to knowsomething.And, although it may be hard to pin

downwhich interpretation is right,there are some interpretations that arejust wrong.This takes us back toMichael Gove and

his view that “people in this countryhave had enough of experts”. Of course,we do not want a populace that simplylies down and does what “experts” tell

them (even assuming that expertssing from the same

hymn sheet), insome kind ofmodernversion of aPlatonic staterun by

philosophers.Yet if you do not want to

be supine, you do have to do abit of work. It is no good thinkingthat any old assertion about theend of the Roman empire on thebasis of a couple of viewings ofGladiator is worth listening to, oracting on.Sorry, folks, experts do know a lot

— and, at the same time, they shouldbe vulnerable and open to challenge,unseating, overturning andmayberidicule. But to do that meansmore thanjust sounding off.A version of this article first appeared onThe Times Literary Supplement website:

the-tls.co.uk

Infamy! Infamy! The b@rbarians have all got it in for me

press, which it was. But there was otherfood for thought too. Several of Banks’ssupporters objected, not unreasonably,that I had not said why I thought theempire fell. And that is where oneproblem lies.If you have only 140 characters

(and a lot fewer if you arereplying@ to a couple ofpeople), it is hard to capture

Arron Banks’sopinions on theRoman empire arenot worth listeningto if they are basedon a couple ofviewings ofGladiator, saysMary Beard

JONATHAN BRADY/FRANCESCO GUIDICINI