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The flipside of the online Christmas shopping miracle The flipside of the online Christmas shopping miracle
(34 minutes later)
When you are ordering Christmas presents from the comfort of your armchair, online shopping feels like progress. With a few clinical clicks of the mouse, you can tick off the trying business of the consumption season.When you are ordering Christmas presents from the comfort of your armchair, online shopping feels like progress. With a few clinical clicks of the mouse, you can tick off the trying business of the consumption season.
However, underneath this modern miracle of convenience lies regression, as our undercover reporters in a Sports Direct warehouse revealed this week: agency workers harangued by public address system for not working fast enough, sick children left at school by their parents for fear of losing their jobs, lengthy body searches and lists of prohibitions for staff, enduring casualised hours. This used to be the stuff of Dickensian fiction – yet it is the daily experience of many workers in the UK today.However, underneath this modern miracle of convenience lies regression, as our undercover reporters in a Sports Direct warehouse revealed this week: agency workers harangued by public address system for not working fast enough, sick children left at school by their parents for fear of losing their jobs, lengthy body searches and lists of prohibitions for staff, enduring casualised hours. This used to be the stuff of Dickensian fiction – yet it is the daily experience of many workers in the UK today.
Related: Revealed: how Sports Direct effectively pays below minimum wageRelated: Revealed: how Sports Direct effectively pays below minimum wage
At the very least, there is something primitively direct and open about humiliation by loudspeaker. Even more chilling is an account from another retailer’s distribution centre relayed to me in recent years: there workers described having to wear wristbands reminiscent of convicts’ electronic tags, which not only scanned the barcodes of goods they were picking but tracked their movements. They calculated the number of hand movements made per minute so that workers could be sent a chivvying text whenever their work rate slowed down. This is man dehumanised and reduced to machine, dystopian science fiction come real. Festive shopping may lead to instant gratification for some – just-in-time ordering, next-day delivery – but it also leads to long-term personalised misery and relentless, minute-by-minute pressure for others. At the very least, there is something primitively direct and open about humiliation by loudspeaker. Even more chilling is an account from another retailer’s distribution centre relayed to me in recent years: there workers described having to wear wristbands reminiscent of convicts’ electronic tags, which not only scanned the barcodes of goods they were picking but tracked their movements. They calculated the number of hand movements made per minute so that workers could be sent a chivvying text whenever their work rate slowed down. This is man dehumanised and reduced to machine, dystopian science fiction come true. Festive shopping may lead to instant gratification for some – just-in-time ordering, next-day delivery – but it also leads to long-term personalised misery and relentless, minute-by-minute pressure for others.
Sadly, the Sports Direct warehouse is not an aberration. Much of the growth in employment of recent years has been in this field: jobs that in fact represent the death of the real job. The idea that a company’s value and brand is built not just by its owners but by the labour of all its workers has become a lost paternalistic dream. The notion that staff should be rewarded for their part in success with a fair share not just of profit but of security has all but disappeared. The risks of doing business, traditionally carried by capital, have been pushed down to those who can least afford them.Sadly, the Sports Direct warehouse is not an aberration. Much of the growth in employment of recent years has been in this field: jobs that in fact represent the death of the real job. The idea that a company’s value and brand is built not just by its owners but by the labour of all its workers has become a lost paternalistic dream. The notion that staff should be rewarded for their part in success with a fair share not just of profit but of security has all but disappeared. The risks of doing business, traditionally carried by capital, have been pushed down to those who can least afford them.
The risks of doing business, traditionally carried by capital, have been pushed down to those who can least afford themThe risks of doing business, traditionally carried by capital, have been pushed down to those who can least afford them
Agency working, unpredictable and unsocial hours that may be terminated with no notice, pay well below a living wage, absence of sickness or holiday pay – these are the lived reality for workers in many sectors of the mainstream economy. Not surprisingly, many of these kind of jobs are filled by young, single migrant workers rather than local people. They are incompatible with any decent settled family life – reliable childminders cannot generally be turned on just in time, children do not oblige with sickness to order.Agency working, unpredictable and unsocial hours that may be terminated with no notice, pay well below a living wage, absence of sickness or holiday pay – these are the lived reality for workers in many sectors of the mainstream economy. Not surprisingly, many of these kind of jobs are filled by young, single migrant workers rather than local people. They are incompatible with any decent settled family life – reliable childminders cannot generally be turned on just in time, children do not oblige with sickness to order.
Back in 2007, when unions were fighting for a European directive to win parity for agency workers – thus protecting permanent jobs – the list of sectors being converted to these sort of conditions already went well beyond retail. Car making, steelworks, shipbuilding, construction and printing were joining food and drink manufacturing, agricultural processing, care and catering – even back then.Back in 2007, when unions were fighting for a European directive to win parity for agency workers – thus protecting permanent jobs – the list of sectors being converted to these sort of conditions already went well beyond retail. Car making, steelworks, shipbuilding, construction and printing were joining food and drink manufacturing, agricultural processing, care and catering – even back then.
The directive was opposed by British business and the then Labour government, who said it would undermine “flexibility”. When it was finally implemented in 2010, it was with a huge get-out clause known as the “Swedish derogation”. The result is clear. By the beginning of this year, the ONS reckoned that the number of jobs in the UK with no guaranteed hours was 1.5m. Unions put the number far higher.The directive was opposed by British business and the then Labour government, who said it would undermine “flexibility”. When it was finally implemented in 2010, it was with a huge get-out clause known as the “Swedish derogation”. The result is clear. By the beginning of this year, the ONS reckoned that the number of jobs in the UK with no guaranteed hours was 1.5m. Unions put the number far higher.
Related: A day at 'the gulag': what it's like to work at Sports Direct's warehouseRelated: A day at 'the gulag': what it's like to work at Sports Direct's warehouse
Britain’s so-called recovery since the economic crash has involved 290,000 more people being stuck in temporary work than in 2008. “Temporary” has a peculiarly contemporary meaning here: it is often not the work itself or the demand that is temporary but the employment arrangement too. Christmas creates its own peaks, but typically a warehouse may have 300 permanent employees while using 3,000 to 4,000 workers on site all year round.Britain’s so-called recovery since the economic crash has involved 290,000 more people being stuck in temporary work than in 2008. “Temporary” has a peculiarly contemporary meaning here: it is often not the work itself or the demand that is temporary but the employment arrangement too. Christmas creates its own peaks, but typically a warehouse may have 300 permanent employees while using 3,000 to 4,000 workers on site all year round.
As consumers we may want to do our bit and boycott companies who treat their workforce so casually. Clicking elsewhere when Amazon fails to pay its fair share of tax, or when Sports Direct offers trainers picked out by someone who has been searched and tannoyed, sends a signal to businesses that we are not happy with the system as it is. But shopping boycotts have their limitations.As consumers we may want to do our bit and boycott companies who treat their workforce so casually. Clicking elsewhere when Amazon fails to pay its fair share of tax, or when Sports Direct offers trainers picked out by someone who has been searched and tannoyed, sends a signal to businesses that we are not happy with the system as it is. But shopping boycotts have their limitations.
Revolutions in information technology and logistics have changed the nature of employment as profoundly as mechanisation did during the industrial revolution. It took centuries to win the factory acts and regulations that improved working conditions, and it will take as much of a fight again to rebalance these new inequalities of power.Revolutions in information technology and logistics have changed the nature of employment as profoundly as mechanisation did during the industrial revolution. It took centuries to win the factory acts and regulations that improved working conditions, and it will take as much of a fight again to rebalance these new inequalities of power.