Amazon.com image

What is it like to work inside one of Amazon.com’s warehouses where orders are filled for books, CDs and other items sold on the e-commerce giant’s web site?

Workers at one of what Amazon calls its "fulfillment centers" describe a workplace where the thermometer soars above 100 degrees and where bosses pressure workers to clock in long days.

That’s the picture described by The Morning Call newspaper in Allentown, Penn., which interviewed past and present workers at Amazon’s warehouse in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley.

Civic leaders applaud when Amazon opens a warehouse in a local community, bringing hundreds of jobs during a time of high unemployment in many areas. And the warehouses -- and jobs -- also have been at the center of Amazon’s disputes with states such as California over collecting sales taxes on goods sold through Amazon.

But The Morning Call article offers another side of the warehouses, painting a picture of difficult working conditions:

Workers said they were forced to endure brutal heat inside the sprawling warehouse and were pushed to work at a pace many could not sustain. Employees were frequently reprimanded regarding their productivity and threatened with termination, workers said. The consequences of not meeting work expectations were regularly on display, as employees lost their jobs and got escorted out of the warehouse. Such sights encouraged some workers to conceal pain and push through injury lest they get fired as well, workers said.

Amazon, which has been growing at breakneck speed, plans to continue to expand its distribution centers. Amazon has about 50 distribution centers and has previously said it plans to add 15 and possibly more in 2011.

In 2010, Amazon added 13 distribution centers.