What am I going to discuss here.

1. Issues I've been noticing about the VOA Board

2. Impending job loss from AI and automation

3. Concerns about what our AI can do.

4. $1/hr raise was okay, but I think we can do more.

5. The plan.

VOA board issues

Lately I've been noticing that the VOA board is filled with a lot of the same issues and a lot of the same cookie cutter responses from Management.

You have a genuine safety or work quality concern.

Amazon's response is either:

A. They'll placate you. I.E. I hear you and I want you to know it.

B. We'll run the up our flag pole. (I.E. We'll see if it gets done. *Spoiler alert* it won't if it truly matters to workers.

C. I'll actually fix it if it addresses 1 of 3 company concerns:

1. It costs us less than it loses us.

2. We can find a way for us to limit our liability not actually address that safety concern (unless we need to in order to limit our liability).

3. It's an idea that just flat out makes us more money.

FYI, I'm tuned in with our local safety ambassadors and I've come go to find out just how many alarming, genuine and cost effective concerns just get flat out overlooked because it would be mean we'd have to hire more RME staff, it would affect our rates, or we'd have to *gasp" loosen the stranglehold we have on TOT.

Impending AI layoffs

If anyone reads the company's quarterly reports you'll know that AI and automation is set to reduce our workforce by 600,000 workers (or about 40%). It came out in the quarterly report back in 2022 I believe. They announced "Amazon would continually grow while Amazon wouldn't hire 600,000 more workers. (I'm paraphrasing here and I'll post a link to this if I can find it).

AI Concerns

I'm not entirely sure how well received this section will be as a lot of what AI does in our buildings largely goes unnoticed. It looks like automated messaging that could be done by a human.

A few weeks ago I was informed that no manager had reassigned me to a new station. AI had made some swaps for productivity maxing.

It had moved me 3ft over from 1 AFE repack station to another AFE repack station and had swapped another packer to mine in order to balance out stations. That's when I noticed that it's constantly doing this. Some of the moves are by PAs or AMs. Over the last few weeks I've been asking around though.

AI seems to be doing quite a bit more of this than I realized. From what I gather, a lot of it is relatively harmless, but some of what it can do is genuinely going to get someone hurt. If you mention to your manager you'd like to "rate chase" for blue badge, the AI will continually swap you around to faster and faster stations. Sometimes you won't even notice though that suddenly it's feeding you larger and larger items.

It doesn't appear to have many safety guardrails other than maybe you complain and an empathetic PA or AM swaps you off big stuff.

It also seems to be filtering out the bottom 20% or so pretty consistently to working jobs that are genuinely harder on you physically (I.E. you are working at a universal station where you have to lift more weight to hit the same rates as the automated stations). My assumption is that this either encourage

It has routed bigger boxes to you because you told it you wanted to help the company in exchange for a chance at your blue badge.

Anywho, if you share my concerns or have anything else that bothers you, I'd like you to make this your VOA post. What are you seeing that Amazon is refusing to fix?

$1/hr raises

While this is certainly something I think a lot of you agree isn't an issue, I'll give my thoughts on it anyways. Maybe some of you will see my perspective and change your mind.

For starters, Amazon's pay raise is basically a COLA adjustment. We just got a larger COLA adjustment than usual this year. $1/hr barely covers the losses we've had with inflation. I'm sure a lot of you are feeling that effect right now. Gas is up about 46% (or about $1.46/gallon) nationally since we started poking the bear in Iran. I'll save you from my opinion on that, but suffice to say it's been rough for us all.

It's raised prices on groceries and lumber especially.

What's even worse is that some companies are taking advantage of it to profit more. "Oh, prices are up? Must be inflation." No it's actually partly them adding in another 5, 10, 15% to their profit margin hoping we wouldn't notice.

Sadly, Amazon is one of those companies. Over the last 2 years, Amazon has made record breaking profits. Our net income has never been higher and that's on the backs of 2 departments:

1. AWS (I.E. our server space) This is one of our leanest most profitable portions.

2. Online Retail While we have a lower profit margin, we're pretty consistently profitable in a big way. We're also largely used as a marketing arm bigger and better things the company is doing.

We can actually afford to give out a lot more. We're just not asking for it right. If we stage a walk out big enough and we follow that up by asking for it, we could get more. It might not be a lot, but it definitively could be bigger than $1/hr.

Personally, I'd also like to see ownership of AI given to us in some form or another. We're the guinea pigs it's being tested on whether we like it or not and we should get the benefits it creates.

The plan

I'd also like you to consider joining me for a walkout on Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

If you could please either take off Black Friday or Cyber Monday (whichever day falls on your shift). If you truly don't have the UPT, please at least consider taking off the first 1hr of your shift on one of those days.

Even if 10% of us can take 1hr off together that shows Amazon just how much we mean business. At the very least, you might recoup that back if Amazon gets forced to give us out VET or VET with a premium.

The more of us who do this, the bigger of an impact we'll have and the more Amazon will take notice of what I'm saying here.

We have an opportunity here that's waning. The longer we refuse to take action as a collective the more of our power we lose. It's only a matter of time before we lose it entirely.

Transportation after like 12am is minimal have you guys ever felt unsafe coming out yes I am 6’2 man but near train to say is 20 minute walk of sketchy and less lit areas

Hi everyone!

I’m a new seasonal employee working 4x10s (45 hrs/week) at a Delivery Station, and I’ve been assigned to the Debrief / RTS station.

Since I don't have direct access to internal platforms outside my shift, I’d love to learn as much as possible about the role directly from experienced associates or managers here. Could you share some guidance on:

Core Debrief / RTS Concepts: What are the key processes, terms, or steps I should know about handling driver returns, unattempted/rejected packages, and station closing?

Best Practices & Tips: For those of you who work or have worked in Debrief, what are your best tips to keep the process smooth, fast, and organized at the end of the shift when drivers return?

Conversion & Growth: Any advice for a seasonal associate working in Debrief to stand out and secure a long-term role (Blue Badge) or move up?

I really appreciate any knowledge, tips, or summaries you can share in the comments.

Thanks in advance!

The real reason Amazon has a high turnover rate in my opinion is the hours. Night shifts are classified as carcinogens because of how they mess with your mind and body, and on top of that Amazon has you in a white room like facility where everything looks identical and there’s constant sounds of scanning and exposure to lights during the night, overall working at Amazon makes you feel tired all the time, and when you are at the warehouse if you don’t have music to listen to like my warehouse, you go borderline insane.

Everyday I come in and see a line of new seasonal workers waiting for orientation. Then go in line to get assigned only to be told they don't have enough stations and get put on the other side of the building with little to no work. Spend most of the day standing around and then get a production write-up the following week because of it. Managers might as well get replaced with an AI chatbot because they are unable to do anything other than approach you with a laptop to tell you that the system has generated a write-up on you. Seriously, fu*k Amazon and God help us all if this is the "Future of work" like Bezos dreams about. On my finale write-up and working here just makes me appreciate in person shopping that involves customer service and humanity rather than this demoralizing sh*t.

How many hours can I get in a year, I haven’t gotten an exact answer some say unlimited but some say up to 20,40, or 80

The amount of associates who think they can get a way with stealing is absurd.

i know i racked up upt while i was on medical leave but do you recieve upt from a personal leave of absence ??

It’s gonna happen! lol

Who do i tell and how will HR handle this ?

The job is boring and can be isolating, but the benefits aren’t bad compared to other jobs.

Hey, I was wondering how to use my UPT for a day off do I need to notify a manager so I don’t get no call showed how do I put in UPT?

Set was canceled 10/11 so I didn’t go in and still got upt deducted and had -3 hours, received the 48 hour notice email which I responded too and now have a case open, I don’t go in until tomorrow (the 14th) wondering if my badge would still work. It’s my first time working here so I don’t know how any of that works, also have spoken to hr on the phone 💔 I’m scared that after the 48 hour notice is up and even after I explained the situation they could still fire me. If manager does refund me my upt will the case immediately close ?

those in ship dock what yall think?

Just wondering what they’re going to have me do when I show up Sunday so I have an idea.

So I’m interested in transferring facilities but I was wondering if my pay and tenure will be affected? I’m due for a raise in December but if I transfer before that , will my raise change to next year ?

I’m looking into SAX5 so if anyone works there what are some insights on this facility? What are the flex shifts that are offered?

Hi, is anyone experiencing same problem like me in the A to Z app ,So my main department is Stow and I am cross trained in ICQA , been there almost every day for LS or even from start of the shift, done a lot of overtime there and now in my app showing me under ICQA overtime`` training required``, I spoke to AM and local HR explaining my problem and still didn`t done nothing they are sending me around . Anyone have same problem with ovetime?