London’s Sunday Times carries a story asserting that Amazon’s UK management is making its staff work seven days a week or else. How do they know? It seems they planted an undercover reporter with co.uk after a temp ratted the employer out.

According to the story,

The reporter spent seven working days at Amazon’s warehouse in Bedfordshire as a packer after signing up with Quest Employment, an agency based in Northampton that supplies it with temporary staff. The reporter found that the company refuses to allow sick leave, even if the worker has a legitimate doctor’s note; sets quotas for the number of items to be picked or packed in an hour that even a manager described as “ridiculous”; allows only one break of 15 minutes and another of 20 minutes per eight-hour shift, with permission needed to go to the toilet.

Why employees need to go to the toilet was not made clear by the Times.

RC