All About Alec Macgillis Fulfillment Amazon Nomadland

Alec Macgillis Fulfillment Amazon Nomadland: Alec MacGillis, author of the book “Fulfillment”, and writing partner with ProPublica on the warehouse story of Amazon fulfillment centers, has responded to some questions from Amazon regarding their working conditions.

“We hope that this will lead to a better understanding of how many different peoples’ working lives are affected by our business,” Amazon said in a statement.

“We want all our employees to be safe and happy, which is why we’ve invested so much in our people and our facilities. And we make decisions about what works for Amazon based on what’s best for the long-term business, which means we don’t just listen to the research by NGOs that sometimes get a lot of attention.”

The following are some of the questions about working conditions at Amazon fulfillment centers that MacGillis sent to publicly available company information.

The answers, which MacGillis did not share in the article, were published on ProPublica’s website.

Other responses to employees submitted by Amazon managers as part of a job application questionnaire are included in the article.

In an interview with NPR, MacGillis said he was concerned about Amazon providing incomplete information, and added that he still hadn’t received an answer about whether any Amazon centers had been evacuated over safety concerns. “I don’t know the truth,” he said. “I still don’t know the truth.”

MacGillis and co-author, Vanessa Schipani, published a story in the Washington Post about their investigation.

MacGillis’ response to my questions about the article:

I’d like to set the record straight on some things.

• We don’t believe that Amazon warehouses are “sweatshops”. I’ve been harassed by some people with no better way to vent their frustration than calling Amazon warehouses sweatshops. And I’m frankly embarrassed by this. If I ever meet up with them, I may say something like, “Hey look, you don’t actually know what these places are like. You don’t know what the work environment is like in these places, you don’t know how hard people work. There’s a lot more to this story than you’re seeing.”

• I did not imply that Amazon was a democracy on the Post staff. That is simply not my view of the place at all. I’ve never met anyone, much less met any editors about whom I’d say, “you guys are going to write a really good story about Amazon. And the fact that you guys don’t seem to be working together is at least partly why it was never published, but it was a really good story.”

• Amazon has not refused to answer any questions. I asked some questions, they responded, I asked more. As far as we know they answered everything we asked. We simply did not like the answers regarding how much labor costs in their facilities and how many people work there and so on and so on.

• The Washington Post’s story about the warehouse jobs piece was … well, let’s say it was “tough” to read. It was also lengthy and extremely detailed about the jobs we wrote about. And despite saying that “Amazon warehouses are not sweatshops,” it does a number of things that would imply otherwise:

• It says that the Amazon jobs are low paying for the money involved (this is not true).

• It includes this long list of anecdotes from Amazon warehouse employees implying that their hours are long (they’re not – we double checked with these people and they all agreed to be quoted).

• It implies that the Amazon facilities are, in fact, unsafe. This is not true. I assure you.

• It is critical of the Post’s editors and reporters for not going to the Amazon facilities for themselves and asking these questions face to face with employees.