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The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

theguardian.com

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Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#81
post #5

A few cubes away from me one of our guys put his head down on his arms on his work surface. No one noticed, but he died. The guys holding a meeting in the cube across the aisle from him felt bad about it, but they thought he was taking a nap. Any large employer will have people die on the job.

An occasional random death at work is statistically inevitable. Six deaths in as many months is something else. A week before Billy Foister died of a heart attack, he went to the onsite clinic complaining of chest pains. They said he was dehydrated and told him to drink some water and go back to work. The article links to the NCOSH Dirty Dozen report, which describes a well-documented history of Amazon mistreating si…

Re the 6 deaths in as many months:

http://nationalcosh.org/sites/default/files/uploads/2019_Dir...

>All six workers who died at Amazon facilities and operations during the past six months were employees of other firms or contract workers, rather than full-time Amazon employees.

● Andrew Lindsay and Israel Espana Argote, contract workers, died when the wall of an Amazon warehouse collapsed during a severe storm in Baltimore in November 2018.

● Brien James Daunt fell to his death during construction of an Amazon warehouse in Oildale, CA in January 2019. Falls from a height are a well-known – and preventable – hazard in the construction industry, with long-established protocols to reduce risks. CalOSHA is investigating the incident.

● Aviators Ricky Blakely, Conrad Jules Aska and Sean Archuleta died in February when an Air Atlas plane, carrying cargo for Amazon, crashed into Trinity Bay, southeast of Texas. Blakely and Aska worked for Air Atlas and were members of the Airline Professional Association (APA), Teamsters Local 224. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating the incident.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#82
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An occasional random death at work is statistically inevitable. Six deaths in as many months is something else. A week before Billy Foister died of a heart attack, he went to the onsite clinic complaining of chest pains. They said he was dehydrated and told him to drink some water and go back to work. The article links to the NCOSH Dirty Dozen report, which describes a well-documented history of Amazon mistreating si…

Re the 6 deaths in as many months: http://nationalcosh.org/sites/default/files/uploads/2019_Dir... >All six workers who died at Amazon facilities and operations during the past six months were employees of other firms or contract workers, rather than full-time Amazon employees. ● Andrew Lindsay and Israel Espana Argote, contract workers, died when the wall of an Amazon warehouse collapsed during a severe storm in Bal…

> All six workers who died at Amazon facilities and operations during the past six months were employees of other firms or contract workers, rather than full-time Amazon employees.

That changes nothing. They were working to Amazon's rules at Amazon operations. Amazon bears responsibility for the firms they choose to work with and the requirements they give them.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is expected from a nominal workplace is that they spot someone collapsing on the floor and give that top priority - I mean the article mentions a 20 minute response time, that's not normal for a busy warehouse. Vs a 2 minute response time for making a mistake. Also, do you work or are you paid for by Amazon? It's known they pay people to say how great it is to work at Amazon on e.g. twitter - not dystopian at al…

Considering how many blind spots their warehouses must have, and how rarely many of the isles might be visited, I don’t think any special maleficence or irresponsibility is required for some down person to be missed for a while. Not saying they shouldn’t be fixing this problem, just that it seems like a problem even the most perfectly humane company could easily have. And you might want to check your paranoia. It doe…

> Amazon barely makes any profit, you may have heard

And yet somehow Bezos has over a hundred billion dollars and a space program. Where did that come from if not profit? The fact that it doesn't go in the box marked "profit" on the accounts doesn't mean that it isn't the extraction of surplus value.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been subscribed to that mailing list for about five years and I've never seen anybody making jokes about bad warehouse working conditions. Sometimes it gets brought up to let someone know that overcrowded bathrooms or "bad coffee" aren't so bad in relative terms. Also, some people care enough to sign their names next to quotes in support of warehouse worker strikes: https://medium.com/@amazonemployeesclimatejust…

Just to be clear - did you sign your name in support or are you a current Amazon employee defending the company’s reputation in light of these deaths?

How did you come to this conclusion... this is just flaming

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#85

Amazon has 250,000 hourly employees in the USA? Can it really take nearly 0.1% of the US workforce just to deliver online goods? And presumably that's an under-estimate, because it doesn't include most courier work. I was sort of hoping that every item I order on amazon has only perhaps 30 seconds of human time going into it... Assuming I order 3 items/week, and am typical of US citizens, amazon ought to be able to s…

30 seconds to grab an item off a shelf in a huge warehouse, wrap it, put put in a box, tape the box shut, print and attach a label, load it on a truck, and complete all the required tracking steps? And we still haven't accounted for managing all these people, cleaning the warehouse, or even stocking the shelves. Edit: CNN says it takes a minute of human labor as of 2016 ( https://money.cnn.com/2016/10/06/technology/a…

I'm guessing most of those steps will be automated, or done in bulk, therefore only taking 1 or 2 seconds of actual human time.

For example, sticking labels on a box could be entirely automated, with the only time use being 30 minutes to replace the printer once every million labels when it wears out.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#86
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to be clear - did you sign your name in support or are you a current Amazon employee defending the company’s reputation in light of these deaths?

How did you come to this conclusion... this is just flaming

No, I’m asking sincerely. They’re claiming knowledge of internal conversations at Amazon about these issues and then questioning whether the grandparent had supported warehouse workers in a protest action.

I don’t think it’s “flaming” to inquire more or less the same thing they did of the original poster, especially since they stake out public support around these issues as some kind of litmus test.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is expected from a nominal workplace is that they spot someone collapsing on the floor and give that top priority - I mean the article mentions a 20 minute response time, that's not normal for a busy warehouse. Vs a 2 minute response time for making a mistake. Also, do you work or are you paid for by Amazon? It's known they pay people to say how great it is to work at Amazon on e.g. twitter - not dystopian at al…

Considering how many blind spots their warehouses must have, and how rarely many of the isles might be visited, I don’t think any special maleficence or irresponsibility is required for some down person to be missed for a while. Not saying they shouldn’t be fixing this problem, just that it seems like a problem even the most perfectly humane company could easily have. And you might want to check your paranoia. It doe…

> Considering how many blind spots their warehouses must have, and how rarely many of the isles might be visited, I don’t think any special maleficence or irresponsibility is required for some down person to be missed for a while.

You know, it just might be considered a little bit irresponsible to construct a physically demanding worksite where someone can have a major medical problem and not be noticed.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#88

Amazon has 250,000 hourly employees in the USA? Can it really take nearly 0.1% of the US workforce just to deliver online goods? And presumably that's an under-estimate, because it doesn't include most courier work. I was sort of hoping that every item I order on amazon has only perhaps 30 seconds of human time going into it... Assuming I order 3 items/week, and am typical of US citizens, amazon ought to be able to s…

A lot of Amazon warehouses operate roughly 24/7, so there are multiple shifts.

Also, keep in mind that there are truck drivers, vending supply stockers, safety specialists, IT folks, etc supporting the whole operation.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#89
post #78
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t realize Amazon hires the elderly and people in hospital.

Amazon will hire anyone who can pass a drug test and physically handle the work for at least a day.

...which people in hospital clearly cannot.

Re: The outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, then why aren't all these workers quitting their hated jobs in droves? Why would they care if they get fired, when they can just get another, even better job? If there were better jobs readily available to them, then Amazon would have no power over these workers.

"Why would they care if they get fired, when they can just get another, even better job?" Have you considered... they cannot get an 'even better job'? I highly recommend reading "Hustle and Gig: Struggling and Surviving in the Sharing Economy". It details the lives of people working at TaskRabbit, Uber, AirBnB, and KitchenSurfing. It might also help explain the choices of why people are taking 'bad work' (that there…

That's exactly the point the parent poster was making.
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