Since entrepreneur Jeff Bezos founded e-commerce giant Amazon in 1994, the company has come to define the virtual storefront and has proven convenient for savvy college students. Need proof of Amazon’s presence on the Brandeis’ campus? Look in the recycling bins. Prime boxes of every size and shape crowd the blue receptacles, having served their purpose of Two-Day Free Shipping™. The appeal is clear: low prices on the essentials of college life, no need to leave campus — or even bed — and a six-month free trial of Amazon Prime for all college students. Yet, the same ultra-competitive pricing and innovative spirit that make Amazon so attractive to consumers make it a toxic place to work. A high-stress culture and poor warehouse conditions are buried under convenient grocery programs and news of drone delivery. 

Back-to-school shopping is a bigger deal than ever, and it’s increasingly moving online. As students gear up for the fall semester, they spend a lot — a projected $828.8 billion in back-to-school spending nationwide, according to research firm eMarketer. Shopping during this period is becoming digital, and Amazon offers students book buybacks, low prices and new services like Prime Now, which deliver food and other items within a couple hours. Amazon’s efforts are working, and the site just enjoyed its biggest sales day ever. A July 13 TechCrunch article described the member-exclusive Prime Day as a runaway success with nearly one billion sales, many of which were accounted for by Amazon’s own Kindle and Fire TV devices. The creative products and services Amazon offers its customers are being received well, and the company continues to innovate. 

However, this innovation on customers’ behalf comes at the price of employees’ well-being. Amazon displays a progressive, constantly-advancing front, but the force behind it is disgruntled and oft-mistreated. According to an Aug. 16, 2015 New York Times article, the Amazon campus is set apart from the workplaces of other tech giants by its highly-stressed employees and comparative lack of amenities. The article describes the sight of employees crying at their desks as common and says that employees often must front money for work-related expenses and hope to be reimbursed. Google’s and Facebook’s complexes offer gyms and high-quality food; Amazon eschews these to keep the focus on work. While there is nothing wrong with a focused workplace, ex-Amazon employee Dina Vaccari was quoted by the New York Times saying she once “didn’t sleep for four days straight” and used her own money to hire a data entry specialist without telling Amazon because she was so overwhelmed. The prevailing work culture at Amazon’s headquarters is that more work is always better, and causing employees to neglect other areas of their life on that basis is wrong.  

Complaints against Amazon’s workplace policies are not limited to its Seattle complex; according to an Aug. 6, 2013 Washington Post article, none of Amazon’s 90,000 American workers are unionized and warehouse conditions have been described as unsafe. Dave Clark, Amazon’s VP of worldwide operations and customer services, told the Post that “Amazon views unions as intermediaries that will want to have a say on everything from employee scheduling to changes in processes for handling and packaging orders.” This is an example of Amazon choosing to serve its customers above its workers. For example, warehouse chain Costco allows its workers to unionize and enjoys an employee turnover rate of just six percent in the first year and 17 percent overall, according to a December 2006 article in the Harvard Business Review. Costco’s median tenure for employees is 4.8 years, as opposed to Amazon’s 1.4 years.  This is significant because it means that a Costco employee holds their job for over three times as long on average as an Amazon employee. Holding a job for a longer period of time shows stability and can indicate satisfaction in the workplace.

On Sept. 18, 2011, Pennsylvania’s Morning Call newspaper landed in the national spotlight after publishing an exposé on working conditions at Amazon’s Lehigh Valley warehouse facility. Updated on Aug. 17, 2015, the piece notes that only one out of the 20 warehouse employees interviewed said he was satisfied with his job. Others complained of dangerous heat and forced overtime, and the article claims that ambulances were stationed outside the warehouse in the summer because so many employees suffered from heatstroke. This article raised eyebrows nationwide and caused Amazon to install air conditioners at processing facilities. During the summer of 2016, Amazon revealed plans to open a second warehouse in Lehigh Valley, according to a July 21 Morning Call article. While this recent article mentioned the 2011 investigation, the fact that Amazon is now opening another facility in Lehigh Valley signals that, despite past difficulties, the company is confident in its ability to hire and retain more workers in the area.

In July 2015, Amazon passed Walmart as the nation’s largest retailer in terms of market value, at $247.6 billion, according to data in a July 23, 2015 Bloomberg article. So how does the online giant escape the widespread scrutiny that has enveloped chain stores like Walmart over the treatment of its employees? A Feb. 19, 2015 Los Angeles Times article said that the wages of Walmart’s lowest-paid employees “have long been a national scandal.” By contrast, Amazon’s employee treatment is largely absent in media coverage. For starters, the internet provides Amazon with a virtual curtain. Customers do not interact directly with employees and instead interact with the website. When a company aims to deliver packages by drone, it’s easy to forget about the actual people working there. In addition, even low-level employees take a vow of secrecy by signing confidentiality agreements in order to protect trade secrets, according to an Aug. 16, 2015 New York Times article.

One of Amazon’s greatest strengths is that it has no direct competitor in the United States. Commerce site eBay carries an even greater variety of items but operates as a peer-to-peer marketplace rather than as a direct seller, and thus eBay cannot set prices or ensure a certain inventory. Target and Walmart offer online shopping, but their sites are clunky and poorly stocked compared to Amazon, and they’re a distant second priority to the brick-and-mortar enterprises. Because Amazon exists in a vacuum, it is difficult to compare it to any other retailer or tech company. It is wading uncharted waters, but its progress has not been as easy on employees as it has been for customers. Because Amazon is so unique and useful, especially to college students, most of us will not take it off our shopping lists. However, if the company is to keep up its innovative tear, it should not count on being able to treat its employees as disposable forever.