Jusqu’à maintenant, le site de vente en ligne de vêtements et accessoires Asos bénéficiait d’une image cool. Dans une enquête réalisée par la version britannique du site d’information Buzzfeed, trois journalistes dévoilent l’envers du décors de l’entrepôt de la marque à Grimethorpe, ancienne ville minière dans le nord de l’Angleterre.
Dans ce hangar, qui compte 42 kilomètres d’allées, des hommes et des femmes travaillent sous la pression 7 jours sur 7, 24 heures sur 24. Le monstre du prêt-à-porter, aussi qualifié d’Amazon de la mode par son PDG, impose à ses employés des objectifs de productivité lourds. Afin de traiter un maximum de commandes par heure, les managers « déconseillent », par exemple, aux employés de faire des pauses pour boire de l’eau ou même aller aux toilettes, en particulier quand la fin de la journée approche.
Modification des emplois du temps à la dernière minute, fins de contrats sans préavis, licenciements après avoir été en congé maladie… Les témoignages d’anciens salariés sont terrifiants. Le site dément cependant toutes ces accusations d’exploitation et estime traiter comme il faut ses employés. À la suite de cet article, les parlementaires britanniques ont affirmé vouloir ouvrir une enquête.
Source : http://rue89.nouvelobs.com
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The heart of the online retailer’s global empire is a giant warehouse in the north of England where workers say they are treated like machines to get your order to you wherever you are in the world. A BuzzFeed News investigation reveals allegations of exploitative contracts, an overbearing security regime, and stressed workers.
posted on Sept. 29, 2016, at 10:38 a.m.
Joanne Goddard has lived in the South Yorkshire town of Barnsley her whole life. In April 2016 she took a job as an agency worker at online fashion retailer Asos’s vast global distribution centre, which sends millions of pounds’ worth of clothes to customers around the world every week.
Joanne Goddard Courtesy of Joanne Goddard
She was on the first floor of Asos’s huge, grey warehouse when the panic consumed her.
Stressed that she was falling behind on her work targets, she found herself rushing down wrong aisles trying to pick items for customer orders. Soon the familiar pangs of anxiety, which she had last suffered with 18 months earlier, began to take hold.
She tried to calm herself, but at 10:30pm, half an hour before the end of her shift, it was too late. In a blur and overwhelmed, she managed to make it to the third floor – the busiest floor – to put away her hand scanner as night staff were piling in all around her, ready to fulfil customers’ next-day-delivery orders.
She found a team leader and explained she was having a bad panic attack. The next thing she remembers is being taken to first aid, and then driven home.
A week later, her assignment was ended.
Pallets laden with boxes sit in the “Goods Inwards” section of Asos’s distribution warehouse in Barnsley, England, in April 2014. Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg / Getty Images
In a three-month investigation, BuzzFeed News interviewed current and former Asos warehouse employees and obtained internal documents, text messages, and phone recordings that lay bare the highly pressurised conditions involved in getting online orders from the company’s central warehouse to customers across the world within 48 hours.
Agency workers and permanent staff say they are saddled with onerous targets to process high volumes of orders each hour, and some say this discourages them from stopping to drink water or use the toilet – and that managers have even recommended they don’t do so towards the end of shifts.
The investigation comes as Asos finds its working practices under increased public scrutiny. Last month Labour MP and party leadership contender Owen Smith criticised the company’s use of flexible working contracts, and the trade union GMB called for the House of Commons business select committee to launch an inquiry into the firm following complaints about working practices at the Grimethorpe warehouse and “invasive monitoring and surveillance” of staff.
Workers unpack items from shipping crates at the Goods Inwards section inside Asos’s distribution warehouse in Barnsley. Chris Ratcliffe / Bloomberg / Getty Images
It also comes amid growing public concern over the use of flexible contracts following revelations about the treatment of workers by companies such as Sports Direct and Hermes, and protests by Deliveroo riders about pay structure.
BuzzFeed News can reveal that:
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Asos managers allegedly live-monitor the number of orders put through the hand scanners used by workers, who can be reprimanded if they fall behind.
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Staff say they are unable to take regular toilet breaks or water breaks for fear of missing targets, sometimes at the behest of managers.
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Agency staff say they are kept on contracts they believe are exploitative as they allow for them to have assignments ended without notice, to be sent home without pay, or to be told not to come in if management decides to cancel their shift at any time.
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Staff on “annualised hours” contracts say their shifts can also be cancelled or extended at short notice under arrangements that allow Asos to “flex up” and “flex down”, and that additional hours have been effectively unpaid with workers being given time off rather than money for time worked.
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Workers have allegedly had their assignments ended after falling ill at work or taking time off to care for sick relatives.
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Staff allege that security on the site is intrusive and “embarrassing” and that they are sometimes made to remove their shoes for spot checks and searched upon entering the toilets.
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Pay is docked if an employee arrives at the warehouse even a single minute late. Workers claim 15 minutes’ pay has been docked for just one minute’s lateness.
Global logistics giant XPO, which runs the distribution centre, disputes the allegations. It also says workers are paid for every minute worked and that it works to ensure a “best-in-class and safe working environment”....
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