'Everything is fine' | Amazon axes scheme which paid staff to praise working conditions

Despite ongoing claims of staff mistreatment and unsafe working conditions among its warehouse staff, online retail giant Amazon has reportedly ‘shuttered’ a programme that sought to spread ‘positive messages’ about the company on social media, through ‘paid and hand selected’ workers, new insight from the Financial Times has found.

The working conditions within Amazon’s warehouses have been a point of contention for several years. In November of last year, HR Grapevine reported that over a five-year period, November 2021 was the worst month on record for ambulance callouts to the warehouse locations, with an average of 67.

By comparison, April was typically the lowest month for such incidents, with an average of 24.

A spokesperson for the GMB Union, which covers Amazon’s warehouse employees, said at the time that the firm’s workers were “breaking bones, being left in pain at the end of a shift and getting barred from work for raising COVID complaints.”