Big Tech Worker Woes

Apple and Amazon are wildly rich firms but their treatment of hourly-wage workers is deplorable.

• Apple’s iPhone factory in India, run by Foxconn, has been found to have poor working conditions, lack of Covid protocols and terrible living conditions for women employees.
• Hostels having toilets without running water, tainted food which sickened 250 workers, crowded living quarters are just some of the isuses facing Apple factory workers in India.
• This isn’t the first time Apple’s iPhone-making factories have been accused of questionable practices. Foxconn factories in China have routinely been in the eye of the storm.
• It’s not just the factory workers. In an investigation, Apple’s retail store employees complained about how Apple’s corporate team which oversees retail stores has no clue how things work.
• Amazon, a trillion dollar company and owned by the world’s richest man, is rutheless with its warehouse workers and is known to monitor every minute of their working time.
• Incessant monitoring by digital tools and that data determining the paycheck is an issue. Some of Amazon's delivery drivers are so time-pressed that they have to pee in water bottles.
• Amazon goes out of its way to prevent any kind of unionisation of its low-wage employees. Even in the pandemic year, many hourly wage employees weren’t given any health cover.
• Researchers who have studied the code of conduct manifestos of these companies note that having it is one thing, but ensuring it is followed to the book is a whole other matter.
• Researchers claim that as long as just-in-time manufacturing and holiday sale seasons such as Cyber Monday, Amazon Prime Day and other continue, worker exploitation will happen.
• In this reading, we take a look at how while big tech companies wax eloquent employee wellbeing they turn a blind eye when its lowest-paid employees try to raise their voice.