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Fulfilling the ‘British way’: beyond constrained choice—Amazon workers' lived experiences of workfare
Abstract
This article makes a distinctive contribution to critiquing the Taylor Review of Modern Working Practices (TRMWP). Rejecting TRMWP's abstracted concept of ‘choice’ and its celebration of the ‘British way’ of job creation, it emphasises the degree of compulsion experienced by low‐pay, temporary workers in local labour markets. The empirical focus is on Amazon's ‘fulfilment centre’ at Swansea and draws on testimonies of ‘associates’, both permanent and, mostly, agency temps including migrant workers. The article situates these worker experiences in job‐starved labour markets, considering the role of temporary worker agencies (TWAs) and the effects of workfare and benefit sanctions. The evidence compels a reconceptualisation of the triangular relationship between TWAs, employers and temp workers as quadrilateral, emphasising the role of the state. A brutal, digitally enabled lean workplace regime intersects with a brutal, digitally enabled workfare regime which serves to thoroughly critique Taylor's absurdly optimistic characterisation of choice.
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“For instance, while numerous studies have examined Amazon warehouses as emblematic cases of technologically intensive logistics (e.g.Briken and Taylor 2018;Delfanti 2021;Guerrero-Valle et al. 2025;Nataraj et al. 2025), relatively scant research has explored the extent of digitalisation within logistics SMEs (small-to medium-sized enterprises), which, despite their scale, make up much of the sector”
From Reflections on Sociotechnical Change: New Directions for and Continuities in Research on New Technology, Work, and Employment (2026) · cites this paper as Briken and Taylor 2018
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Cited by
New social relations of digital technology and the future of work: Beyond technological determinism
Joyce, S., Umney, C., Whittaker, X., & Stuart, M. (2023) · New Technology, Work and Employment · doi:10.1111/ntwe.12276 · Cited by 97
Howcroft, D., Lucio, M. M., & Taylor, P. (2026) · New Technology, Work and Employment · doi:10.1111/ntwe.70049 · Cited by 1
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Briken, K., & Taylor, P.
- Affiliations
- Department of Work, Employment and Organization Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde Glasgow UK
- Venue
- Industrial Relations Journal
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2018-11
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 5-6
- Pages
- 438-458
- ISSN
- 0019-8692
- 1468-2338
- Cited by
- 68
- References
- 0
- Language
- en
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
