Amazon & Panorama

bylromarha

The Amazon Black Friday deals are selling out pretty fast. People vote with their custom as ever.

Price often wins over ethics.

RFW

campdave wrote: »

I'm not really sure this is true, but prepared to be corrected. Otherwise what do they pay their tax experts for? Costa are UK based and pay more tax than Starbucks.

If Starbucks were removed and replaced with "proper" local shops then it's likely a) tax revenues from these shops would be higher b) employees may be paid higher than minimum wage c) money would not be off shored and spend locally, generating business for other business.

A chain with several hundred stores should be paying a shedload of tax.

As ever, it's the whole picture - it's not just the store, it's the loss to the economy of the other local stores that go out of business when a chain moves in.

Before I start, I'd much rather there were people running local coffee shops than a Starbucks any time. I've never been employed by anyone and think if everyone tried to run their own business we'd all be better off. I'm also happier for taxes to subsidise small business owners than be shafted by big corporations. However...
A small coffee shop can probably get big business rates reductions, Starbucks will generally be paying the full amount.
A small coffee shop will most often be run by one or two people without any staff. My local, relatively small Starbucks employs 10-12 people full and part time. They will pay all national insurance, etc. The shop owners could well be on tax credits and other benefits.
The small shop will likely not be above the VAT threshold and not pay any VAT. Starbucks pay VAT.
The small shop may possibly not earn enough for the owners to pay any income tax. Starbucks may wriggle, but they still pay some tax.

A friend of mine has just taken over a sandwich shop, she has no staff and is barely breaking even. She's currently costing the tax system a lot more than Starbucks and if she does get to where she wants it will still be a few years before the government sees any of it back.

Personally I think as a country we should be encouraging more businesses. JK Rowling lived off benefits for a couple of years whilst writing her book. She's now one of the country's biggest taxpayers.

campdave

We'll have to agree to disagree. I can't accept that Starbucks generate more tax revenue than the equivalent amount of small businesses, once the local suppliers are taken into account and the money they spend in the local community rather than being taken outside the area.

marie-20

I watched the program and it just annoyed me TBH.

It was exactly what I expected it to be - a typical 'impartial' report lol.

What really gets to me is surely most people are aware that the employees are going to be paid a wage just over NMW and expected to work hard for that and I'm sure it's like that in most companies?

As for the targets aren't most employees targeted one way or another anyway? All of my staff have set amounts that I expect them to pack per hour day in day out and I have always been targeted wherever I worked even though my targets were sales figures rather than packing/picking items.

TBH nothing I saw was a surprise - a warehouse is a warehouse and pickers aren't going to see that many people as it's part and parcel of being a picker surely?

As for the 3 points system I actually think that it's a good thing - Amazon employ around 20,000 people during peak times and having a fixed system makes it fairer for all. I think that if anyone was off on average one day a month or late twice a month their employer would be having words anyway but it just sounds shocking initially until you think about it.

sequence

Extremely desperate stuff from panorama. The employees experience was exactly what I would expect to see working as a picker in a warehouse. They were treated well and fairly. Apart from the lights not working, but that's relatively minor in the grand scheme of things.
What was shocking, was the British guy running the book shop as though it's still 1940, whilst whinging that the rest of the world has changed their shopping habits. They couldn't have picked a better example of what's wrong with so many UK businesses. Standing still, not adapting, not improving - watching his inefficient business slowly fail. And it will be the big bad Amazons fault. Yes, the big bad Amazon that started in some guys basement and didn't sit around waiting for the world to return to 1940's shopping habits. Oops.

GlynD

bylromarha wrote: »

The Amazon Black Friday deals are selling out pretty fast. People vote with their custom as ever.

Price often wins over ethics.

It's not only that. We all know that there's be an investigation about this and if Amazon have overstepped the mark they'll be reined in. They're providing loads of jobs so they're valuable to the country. They'll just be given recommendations to implement this and that and the matter will be closed.

soolin

My other thought is that am really the only person from a working class background who remembers their mother and aunts working 'piece time' in factories?

I have been in to a few of the factories my mother worked in when I was little, it was awful- a never ending conveyer belt that never stopped or slowed down- and each person having to do a single thing in a matter of seconds otherwise the whole lot ground to a halt. In Lesney Matchbox one person sat there all day and popped rubber tyres onto toy cars, and other one where mum said she spent weeks merely putting a dolls head onto body several dozen a minute.

GlynD

soolin wrote: »

My other thought is that am really the only person from a working class background who remembers their mother and aunts working 'piece time' in factories?

I have been in to a few of the factories my mother worked in when I was little, it was awful- a never ending conveyer belt that never stopped or slowed down- and each person having to do a single thing in a matter of seconds otherwise the whole lot ground to a halt. In Lesney Matchbox one person sat there all day and popped rubber tyres onto toy cars, and other one where mum said she spent weeks merely putting a dolls head onto body several dozen a minute.

You make a very good point. My first job in a plastics factory had me shouldering bags of polymer weighing 50lbs each, going up a two storey iron stair case and emptying them into a hopper. Up and down all day, to keep the machine constantly fed. All for £17.50 a week.

I left that to work on a fishing trawler. There isn't room here to describe how hard the work was there and in appalling conditions a lot of the time.

yeslek

not trying to downplay or side with Amazon at all, but I can tbe the only one who doesnt see this as news?
I thought it was common knowledge along with their tax dodging?

Maybe its living local to the Rugely warehouse I've heard it in local news long ago.

GlynD

yeslek wrote: »

not trying to downplay or side with Amazon at all, but I can tbe the only one who doesnt see this as news?
I thought it was common knowledge along with their tax dodging?

Maybe its living local to the Rugely warehouse I've heard it in local news long ago.

What tax dodging? Amazon have never broken UK law on tax.