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Sunday 04 August 2013
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Amazon under fire for staffing practices in Randstad contract

Fri, 2 Aug 2013
Online retailer Amazon has come in for heavy criticism after a Channel 4 News report on working conditions and employment rights, including an alleged avoidance of the Agency Workers Regulations (AWR) at the firm’s enormous warehouse in Rugeley in the East Midlands.
 
One temporary worker interviewed by the broadcaster claims to have been repeatedly sacked before he started his 13th week of employment – at which point he would have been entitled to greater benefits and increased pay under the AWR. “I think they had it all mapped out,” he said.
Amazon logo

Neither Amazon nor Randstad, which worked to provide staff to Amazon until February this year, responded to this point when questioned by Recruiter. Nor would they confirm why that partnership ended, Randstad simply saying they “exited the contract”.
 
Randstad says in a statement issued to Recruiter that while it will not as a matter of policy comment on specific client relationships, it is “concerned” and has “started a thorough investigation to ascertain if they [the allegations] are justified and will take appropriate action if required”.
 
One former Randstad employee told the channel he and his Randstad colleagues had been instructed not to inform employees of holiday pay entitlement. Amazon tells Recruiter that agencies are “contractually obliged to pay holiday pay and that is accounted for in the amount we pay to agencies”.
 
Other allegations against Amazon include insufficient lunch breaks, penalties for taking too long for toilet breaks and harsh performance standards, including the fitting of GPS trackers to monitor staff activity.
 
And complaints of abuse of the zero-hours contracts some staff are employed on also feature. Under the contracts, staff are not guaranteed any hours, and may have their work increased or reduced at short notice.
 
However, Amazon tells Recruiter that 95% of temporary staff have “a number of hours specified in their contracts”, and expects this to rise to 100% by the end of the year.

Randstad office
Amazon also says that one reason it uses zero-hours contracts is “as a way of finding high-quality permanent associates”, hiring some on a permanent basis. This year, it has put 1,000 temporary workers into permanent positions.
 
The report comes the day after the Office for National Statistics updated previous estimates on the use of zero-hours contracts nationally, saying 250,000 people or 0.84% of the workforce were engaged in this way – up from the 200,000 figure suggested earlier this year – although this revised estimate is dwarfed by the alleged 307,000 zero-hours contracts one estimate suggests are in use in the social care sector alone.
 
Recruitment & Employment Confederation chief executive officer Kevin Green told Channel 4 that while he “did not want to comment on the specific instance of Amazon”, he believes there is “nothing inherently wrong with the contracts themselves – it’s about how they’re used”.
 
Also speaking to Channel 4, Labour MP Alison McGovern said that she has spoken to “bodies representing HR professionals” which think zero hours need regulating.
 
The Work Foundation’s Lizzie Crowley, meanwhile, noted previous research showing that only 18% of zero-hours workers are looking for alternative employment.
 
Green and McGovern both spoke last month at an event hosted by The Work Foundation, in which a range of speakers broadly agreed that a ban on the contracts would be misplaced.
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