[peterwwillis]

"My own story of how I became a human robot could not have been darker. Shifts began in the gloom at 7.30am and ended at 6pm, long after the sun had gone down."

Oh, heavens. That almost sounds like a high school teacher's schedule.

"Two half-hour breaks were the only time off my feet"

Kind of like working in a supermarket?

"toiling for up to 55 hours a week"

The horror??

"[the warehouse] is so vast that just walking to the toilet could take more than five minutes"

Ok, this is actually absurd, and I would expect against some kind of regulation. If they don't have adequate facilities how can they expect efficient work, anyway?

[brianwawok]

Is 5 minutes absurd? I worked at random factories in the day, 5 minute walk to the crapper was about right.

Now the difference was I didn't get fired because my productivity went down .1%, which is the problem with the hyper data Amazon warehouse worker...

[peterwwillis]

Yeah, that is the main problem. If it takes you even 10 minutes to get to the crapper, fine, as long as the employer is willing to compensate you for that. It's unethical to force workers to choose between taking a crap and keeping their pay or their job. You can't just choose not to take a crap.