Tyler Hamilton has optimized his each waking minute. Between Black Friday and Christmas, 5 nights per week, he pulls himself off the bed, brushes his enamel, and rushes to his automobile simply earlier than sundown. On his drive to the Amazon achievement heart in Shakopee, Minnesota, he stops at Wendy’s to purchase two bourbon bacon burgers, two giant chilis, fries, and a drink.

Hamilton eats the burgers as he drives after which punches in to start out his shift arranging incoming product stock simply earlier than 5 pm. In the nighttime, he takes thirty minutes of unpaid break time and reheats the chilis. By the time he clocks out at 5:30 am, his automobile has frozen, so Hamilton sits huddled at nighttime till it warms sufficient that he can drive house.

“Then I have to shower, because working at Amazon for 12 and a half hours means you’re going to be filthy,” he says. “I’ll have some juice and maybe watch a little bit of YouTube or something and just pass out.” The subsequent night, he’ll do all of it once more.

As vacation purchasing reaches a climax this week, Amazon’s two-day Prime delivery stays one of many few choices left for determined buyers nonetheless hoping to order on-line. It’s a notoriously exhausting and demanding time for staff on the firm, the place the interval between Black Friday and Christmas day is named “peak season.”

During peak, Amazon requires that staff add a full 10- or 11-hour shift to their already demanding weekly schedules, a number of staff informed WIRED, and penalizes those that don’t by eradicating a day of unpaid go away for every missed additional shift. The firm additionally will increase staff’ every day anticipated productiveness charge, outlined with metrics corresponding to objects packaged per hour, staff say.

The 4 staff interviewed for this piece additionally say that their managers communicate much less about security and as a substitute emphasize pace throughout this era. All have been concerned in organizing fellow staff to try to enhance working circumstances, however none work at a facility the place a unionization petition has been filed.

Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly says that though the vacations are Amazon’s busiest time “the health and well-being of our employees is our top priority.” Productivity expectations don’t improve throughout peak, he says, and staff ought to take any office issues to their supervisor. “We assess performance based on safe and achievable expectations that take into account time and tenure, peer performance, and adherence to safe work practices,” Kelly says.

Amazon has turn into the dominant on-line retailer within the US and in nations such the UK and Germany largely by means of its huge logistics operations. But the corporate’s amenities have developed a repute for punishing working circumstances. Amazon is the second largest non-public sector employer within the US—behind Walmart—and employed practically 800,000 staff in blue-collar “labor” roles in 2021. Workers at a Staten Island Amazon facility won a unionization vote this 12 months, however the firm is disputing the consequence.

This 12 months’s vacation season happens at a tough time for each Amazon’s leaders and its logistics staff. In 2022, the corporate’s income grew on the slowest charge in additional than 20 years, and in November it started laying off 10,000 corporate employees. Amazon additionally misplaced nearly 100,000 warehouse and supply staff this 12 months, it told investors, primarily by not changing individuals who left the corporate, which has a excessive charge of turnover in these roles. The firm nonetheless employed additional workers to handle the seasonal rush, asserting in October it might add 150,000 temporary workers to its warehousing and supply operations.