Amazon Builds Huge Warehouse In Slum Area Mexico To Support Poor

The retail group Amazon does not seem to have a particularly good knack at the moment when it comes to image maintenance. So these days appear somewhat dystopian images of a new logistics center that was built in the middle of slums in Mexico.

The contrast could hardly be more blatant: A new logistics distribution center for Amazon has been built in Tijuana, Mexico, not far from the border with the USA. It now stands there in the middle of a poor settlement, in which people have cobbled together meager dwellings out of wood, tin, and cardboard in order to get a roof over their heads at all.

Such images are more familiar from science fiction films that are set in a not exactly bright future. And Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose company put the 21 million dollar structure in the poor district, tried to spread a touch of science fiction with his latest space adventure.

Amazon sees no problem in the settlement – on the contrary. One speaks of the advantages that the thing has for the surrounding regions. After all, jobs will be created, there should be 250 people in Tijuana who will be hired directly by Amazon at a minimum wage of $ 10.70 per hour. That would actually be a decent sum for a resident of the surrounding huts.

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However, the people who live in the slum are likely to find work, if at all, with one of the various sub-contractors who do the deliveries for Amazon. And here the working conditions are usually much worse than directly at the group. In general, the situation of Amazon employees in Mexico is hardly comparable to that in industrialized countries. In none of the nine logistics centers in the country, for example, is there a trade union organization for employees that could also enforce minimum standards in terms of protection against dismissal or health care.