Randstad calls this sort of system “Inhouse Services” and describes it as a “flexible work solution designed exclusively for each client to optimise the work force and drive cost effectiveness”. After three months, if he had performed well, he could apply to be an Amazon employee, though there was no guarantee he would succeed. A global employment agency called Randstad, which had handled the recruitment process for Amazon, was also to arrange his shifts, manage him on the warehouse floor and pay him his near-minimum wage. So Martin was thrilled when he passed the Amazon recruitment process, which includes drug and alcohol tests, and was given a job on the night shift. If you come from outside it’s like walking into a bar in a western,” he said. It didn’t help that he was a relative newcomer in this close-knit community, where job opportunities often spread by word of mouth. The 54 year-old found a night job filling shelves in the Morrison’s supermarket for a while, but it didn’t last. “She led me a merry story, saying, ‘Oh you should walk into a job,’ but there’s no jobs down here,” he said ruefully. Chris Martin moved there in 2007 to be with his partner. Rugeley had never fully recovered from the mine’s closure in 1990, and the local economy was further depleted by Britain’s deep recession of 2008-09. “People are crying out to get back into work.” “It’s absolutely fantastic news for Rugeley,” the release from Aidan Burley, the area’s member of parliament, said. Local politicians rushed out jubilant press releases. Like almost everyone without a job in Rugeley, a mostly white working-class town of about 22,000, Chris Martin started scouring the internet for application details as soon as he heard Amazon was coming. Britain’s economic transformation is playing out in miniature in this smoky little town. It’s not helpful to our economy it’s not helpful to the individuals,” he says. If anyone should still be a cheerleader for Amazon, which has created hundreds of jobs in the past 18 months in a community that sorely needs them, it is Glenn Watson, manager of economic development at the district council. Most people are still glad Amazon has come, believing that any sort of work is better than no work at all, but many have been taken aback by the conditions and bitterly disappointed by the insecurity of much of the employment on offer. But as they have had a taste of its “jobs of the future”, their excitement has died down. It seemed like this was the town’s chance to reinvent itself after decades of economic decline. People in Rugeley, Staffordshire, felt exactly the same way in the summer of 2011 when they heard Amazon was going to occupy the empty blue warehouse on the site of the old coal mine. “This is great news, not only for those individuals who will find work, but for the UK economy,” he said. Amazon even had a quote from David Cameron, the prime minister, in its September press release. The undisputed behemoth of the online retail world has invested more than £1bn in its UK operations and announced last year that it would open another three warehouses over the next two years and create 2,000 more permanent jobs. Under pressure from politicians and the public over its tax arrangements, Amazon has tried to stress how many jobs it is creating across the country at a time of economic malaise. Above the ground are the trolleys and computers of Amazon, the global online retailer that has taken its place.Īs online shopping explodes in Britain, helping to push traditional retailers such as HMV out of business, more and more jobs are moving from high-street shops into warehouses like this one. Below the ground are the shafts and tunnels of the coal mine that fed the power station and was once the local economy’s beating heart. If you could slice the world in half right here, you could read the history of this town called Rugeley in the layers. “This is the best job I have ever had!” says a speech bubble near her head. They also walk past a life-sized cardboard image of a cheery blonde woman in an orange vest. Before they can go home at the end of their eight-hour shift, or go to the canteen for their 30-minute break, they must walk through a set of airport-style security scanners to prove they are not stealing anything. It is almost Christmas and the people working in this building, together with those in seven others like it across the country, are dispatching a truck filled with parcels every three minutes or so.
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