The Great Amazon Heist

Come here. Look at this! That's a bottle of piss.

That's a bottle of piss. Piss!

That's the Amazon fulfilment centre.

We've been here for, what, two or three minutes?

And we've got seven bottles of piss.

That's definitely p... This one, I'm not so sure about.

Like, this... This looks like it could just be apple...

Yeah, it's apple juice. Look.

Yeah, it's piss.

Amazon. They're the world's biggest online retailer.

Their founder is one of the richest men on the planet,

and they're such a big part of our day-to-day lives now.

I mean, I used to use Amazon all the time.

I kept on hearing these stories about Amazon

not being a great place to work.

Amazon patented cages for staff to work in in 2016.

I've even heard stories about people being disciplined

for having heart attacks at work.

It seems like people think Amazon are getting away with quite a lot,

and I'm an expert in that field.

See, my name's Oobah Butler, and I've made a career out of

getting away with stuff.

I made my garden shed into the number-one rated restaurant

on TripAdvisor in London.

I faked my way to the top of Paris Fashion Week.

And for my next heist, I'm setting my sights on Amazon.

Amazon have been taking the piss for too long now,

and it's about time someone did something.

So to do this, I needed a team.

Yeah... Take on Amazon? Yeah.

Take on Amazon and try and...

...change them, basically. Right.

You are a lawyer? I am. OK.

I think I might be... I might be in trouble.

What did you do, then?

I don't know. I don't know the law.

Yeah, I don't know. Maybe I should just start...

Yeah.

Start telling you.

For a while now, a struggle has been brewing between Amazon and sections

of its workforce, and it was all coming to a head here -

Coventry.

Something historic was about to go down.

Amazon warehouse.

Today is, like, the first ever, like, walk-out

in UK history of Amazon staff.

So we're heading, but we're going...

We're going incognito.

Does that cover my hair up?

It's a bit Jamiroquai-y.

The workers at Amazon Coventry are trying to organise

for better working conditions.

Only one Amazon warehouse on the planet has ever succeeded

in forming a union, so I wanted to find out

what makes going up against Amazon such a challenge

and what was really going on behind closed doors.

Does anyone want to talk to the... You'd like to?

No. No? And you don't want to either?

OK.

Yeah, appreciate that.

I kind of got the sense that Amazon's workers were worried

what would happen to them if they spoke out about what was going on.

Amazon have reacted pretty badly

to workers trying to form unions in the past.

They were even issued a cease and desist for retaliating

against the only currently established Amazon union in America,

so that is what Coventry's workers are up against.

They might not want to recognise unions.

Hi! We're here and we're staying here.

People feel scared to speak up?

That's abundantly clear. Yeah, they are scared.

They don't want to lose their job. They've seen people come and go.

So if Amazon's workers can't talk to me

about what's actually going on inside,

then I need to find another way to see if Amazon's workers

are being mistreated.

I'm going to get inside Amazon.

Coventry Fulfilment Centre, BHX4.

My own personal Fort Knox - and I want in.

It's hard to even get close to this place.

You can't just walk up and have a look.

The whole place is surrounded by this perimeter fence,

constantly patrolled by guards at all hours.

Get past them and you'll get to a set of gates that can only

be accessed by employees with a very special type of card...

...or maybe the subtle art of persuasion.

Er, I was just really wanting to come and have a look in the centre.

You know, I've got an offer that... should be nice.

Just weren't interested.

Right, so if you can't get through, then what about going over?

Attach yourself to a drone, zip right over the gate.

Oh.

Yeah, it didn't... OK.

But there's a back door.

Get in a box, post yourself in as a return,

jump out wearing an Amazon uniform and you could bypass the whole lot.

Just one snag.

But then I had an even more ingenious way

of getting into Amazon.

I applied for a job.

I think I got it.

So I've got the job, I've found a way in,

but now I need some special equipment.

That's... an undercover camera.

I've not really used this in any meaningful way.

And... I know you've done a lot of undercover.

I was thinking, if they catch me, I'm going to say I'm recording

an Undercover Boss.

No, cos that's a lie.

You can't lie. If you're caught, you can't lie.

You're a... You are there in the public interest.

So the problem is with that is that... Look, your brand...

...it's a lie. Your brand is jokester, prankster.

This is the one part of this film

where you cannot be either of those things. Mm-hm.

Did no-one recognise you?

I sprayed my hair brown...

Right, OK... and I swept it back and I had glasses.

And I went under the name Paul.

"Hello, I'm Paul and I work for Amazon."

So, on the first day, I went in and had my induction.

Er, Paul. So I was supposed to be here at 12. Sorry.

Is everything OK with all that?

Oh, God! Sorry.

So I was late to my safety induction.

I'm not sure if I'd missed anything important with regards to, like,

safety or anything, but Norm pulled me up,

so I just joined the other new recruits and tried to catch up.

Amazon say they always reschedule any missed inductions.

It was really rammed home to us

that whenever we left the warehouse floor,

we'd have to go through multiple airport-style security scanners.

It felt pretty intimidating,

like they didn't trust their own staff at all.

I obviously knew I was going to go off like a Christmas tree

every time. Why would you be going off like a Christmas tree?

Cos I had a camera strapped between my legs. Oh, I see.

Did you have a contract of employment issued by them?

Yeah. Yeah, and what did the contract of employment say

about filming and speaking to people?

I didn't really read it. Right, OK.

Fuck it. Doesn't matter, does it?

All right, yes, I agree to that and I agree to that.

So I was all trained up, which meant the next day,

I would be on the warehouse floor -

and that means I'd have to go through the scanners.

Got literally a camera strapped right here by my testicles.

So it's like...

If the scanners don't get me, then there is a god.

Amazon's employees have to go through this every day.

I mean, it felt more like I was walking into some sort of nightmare.

True or false? False.

Right. Is that bad?

Well, what happens next?

I was in, but I was really rattled from almost being rumbled...

...50 I went out to the smoking area to calm my nerves,

sat down next to my new colleagues and introduced myself as...

Which was... Mm-hm... not good.

No. Because I was in disguise

and under a different name. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I was a bit panicky then.

So with their advice in mind, I got my head in the game

and focused on my mission.

I needed to gather evidence of how Amazon workers are being treated,

so I got to work. And as soon as I got on to the warehouse floor,

I got this distinct feeling that I was being watched.

We felt like we were being surveilled at every second.

There was clearly a mistrust of staff.

I guess it was just shocking to me how quickly I started...

Things started aching. My back started hurting.

You know, I started having people who were also on their Day 1

saying about their feet hurting. Yeah.

Have you ever had foot pain before?

One of my co-workers was saying that she had worked there

for eight months and that she was in tears

because of how much pain she was in.

So on the second day, I was working on this lorry.

The fan didn't work.

It's really hot.

I was told that we needed to take turns on shifts

on this boiling hot lorry...

...but I was never rotated out of the van, as my supervisor said,

and instead worked there for four hours.

On Day 1, I'm boiling hot! I'm in pain. Like...

I mean, am I just bad at my job, or is this...?

Well, that sounds more like a health and safety issue.

Right. They're not providing a safe work environment.

Is that a law? Could be an issue, yeah.

It hadn't taken me long to collect evidence of workers in pain

and potentially unsafe practices at Amazon Coventry,

but I was about to discover something even bigger.

I was one of about 100 new employees on that day.

This was a pivotal moment for Coventry's union hopes.

They needed the support of at least 50% of the workforce

to establish Amazon's first union in Europe.

I mean, they were so, so close.

But if Amazon took on hundreds of workers,

that could change everything.

This was wild.

I was shattered, but with this evidence in my hands