Amazon Workers Say Prime Day Rush Breaks Virus Safety Vows (bloomberg.com) 45
Amazon.com has recklessly reinstated dangerous warehouse productivity quotas despite telling a judge that it was suspending them during the pandemic, workers said in a court filing. From a report: "Amazon has not been honest and forthcoming," employees at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, told the judge handling their lawsuit, which claims the company's "oppressive and dangerous" policies violated public-nuisance laws and exacerbated Covid-19 hazards. While Amazon says worker safety is its top priority, employees at several facilities in different states claim their well-being takes a back seat to quickly shipping customers' orders.
In July, Amazon provided the court a message it had sent to employees and posted in bathrooms at the Staten Island facility, telling them they wouldn't be disciplined for falling short of the company's quotas for how many tasks they complete each hour. Workers were also assured that time spent on safety measures like washing their hands wouldn't be counted against them under Amazon's "Time Off Task" policy, which restricts the number of unproductive minutes allowed in their day. The company also submitted a statement by a U.S. human resources director that the more permissive policy dated back to March, when due to Covid-19 the company "ceased providing productivity rate feedback to associates and imposing any discipline related to low productivity rates."
In July, Amazon provided the court a message it had sent to employees and posted in bathrooms at the Staten Island facility, telling them they wouldn't be disciplined for falling short of the company's quotas for how many tasks they complete each hour. Workers were also assured that time spent on safety measures like washing their hands wouldn't be counted against them under Amazon's "Time Off Task" policy, which restricts the number of unproductive minutes allowed in their day. The company also submitted a statement by a U.S. human resources director that the more permissive policy dated back to March, when due to Covid-19 the company "ceased providing productivity rate feedback to associates and imposing any discipline related to low productivity rates."
Who cares? Those workers don't have time to vote. (Score:2, Insightful)
Those workers don't even have time to vote so why even listen to them?
Thousands of workers petition Amazon for paid time off to vote https://edition.cnn.com/2020/1... [cnn.com]
Earlier this year, two of the organization's leaders — Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa — were fired after being vocal about warehouse worker conditions during the pandemic. Amazon said in a statement at the time that it "terminated these employees for repeatedly violating internal policies."
In order to give people
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It happens everywhere (Score:5, Informative)
You don't hear about this crap from red states because they've crushed their Unions and labor so thoroughly that nobody there even thinks about asking time off to vote. It be like asking Stalin for time off from from the Gulags.
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You don't hear about this crap from red states
Utah is a crimson red state and provides every voter with a mail-in ballot.
It be like asking Stalin for time off from from the Gulags.
So Stalin was a Republican?
You don't seem to understand my post (Score:1)
The one thing you'll never see is right wing politics standing on it's own. That's because right wing politics only look to the past and to National Pride and Nationalism. That's the core of Right Win
I should add (Score:1)
One of the reasons the right wing has been so successful the last 50 years is that they adapted to the tactics used by the American left wing.
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I live in a state where you can be fired “at-will”. My state also forbids rent control in all its cities, shut down its health program while giving tax breaks to trendy businesses (While quoting Bush about trickle-down economics). Oh, and my state has the most regressive tax systems of all 50 states, and every time a referendum comes up to change it, it fails ... on the same ballots the elect the legislators.
My state is the crimson-red state known as Washington State. No, wait, did I say red .
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The DNC doesn't really give commoners a seat at the table. They give us plebes a separate table, close enough that they can overhear us and smack us across the back of the head if we get out of line, but far enough that we don't bother them as they continue the exact same policies of the GOP, but occasionally say a little something nice to us to keep us sucking down their shit.
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Those workers don't even have time to vote so why even listen to them? ...
Funny how this always happens in Democrat run states like now in NY, and Amazon's HQ is in Seattle, also run (politically dominated) by Dems.
I don't understand your comment about Democrat run states. In Seattle (and all of Washington state), voting is 100% by mail, so no one takes time off work to vote, nor do they need to.
Let me get this strait... (Score:3, Informative)
You work for a "for profit" company and you don't like that they insist on getting work for the money they pay you?
You work in a margin business, where every penny counts, and if they have to hire 2 employees to do what one could do they are losing money. Now, we have laws about workplace safety, and if you get injured on the job you have recourse in the law to be "made well" both physically and financially. Now if they are asking you to do something really unreasonable, feel free to refuse, but if this is just a ploy to avoid being productive, I'm not interested.
In short, if you don't like the job, start looking for another. There are a pile of job openings out there that pay about as well as Amazon will. When you leave, don't let the door hit you. Until then, if you are cashing the checks, do your job...
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if you get injured on the job
A COVID transmission in the workplace is an OSHA Recordable.
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Remember kiddies, it's not a law if nobody enforces it.
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If you get injured on the job, you can sue to recover damages, even if OSHA wasn't involved.
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If you get injured on the job, you can sue to recover damages, even if OSHA wasn't involved.
Like people who work in Amazon warehouses can afford to sue Amazon. LOL
Your justice system does not work the way you think it does.
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If you get injured on the job, you can sue to recover damages, even if OSHA wasn't involved.
Like people who work in Amazon warehouses can afford to sue Amazon. LOL
Your justice system does not work the way you think it does.
Right... I'm pretty sure I got the basics down about the legal system, having been sued once over some junk non-compete claim. IF you got hurt at work, there are a coven of lawyers just itching to sue on your behalf. If you cannot afford to retain one of them on a (we only get paid if you win) contingency, I'm not sure what you can afford.
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I'm pretty sure I got the basics down about the legal system, having been sued once over some junk non-compete claim.
Pretty sure you are not a trillion dollar company with a legal department the size of a small city. Seems like a rather specious comparison.
IF you got hurt at work, there are a coven of lawyers just itching to sue on your behalf.
Sure, some ambulance chaser will take it on contingency and fight the case for years and years while AMZ's thousands of staff lawyers make it as expensive and painful as possible to make an example of you. Then in the unlikely event you win they can keep most of the settlement while the original plaintiff is just as screwed as ever.
Now if you can get a class action go
You know those laws aren't enforced, right? (Score:1)
It's telling that the phrase we use to tell people to make it on their own ("Pull up by your own bootstraps") is physically impossible.
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Oh wait, you don't because you're safely typing behind a keyboard on your lunch break. And you didn't get stuck with a substandard education due to funding cuts (likely an older gentleman [duckduckgo.com] who got their college degree from a heavily subsidized public University before the buzz saw came down in the 90s). It's telling that the phrase we use to tell people to make it on their own ("Pull up by your own bootstraps") is physically impossible.
A little personal responsibly goes a long way. I worked full time though college and still got my engineering degree. I managed to do it debt free even. I'm working on a masters degree now (some 30 years later) and that's debt free too. This from a poor kid from the backwoods of North Carolina with a high school diploma issued by the only public high school in the 2nd poorest county in the state (and there are a LOT of poor counties in NC).
It may not have been pulling on my boot straps that got me out of
How do you have personal responsiblity (Score:2)
I remember seeing an interview with a kid going to school for coal mining when there were damn few mining jobs and everybody asked him, WTF, why?!!.
His answer? My family's here and they can't move. So unless I want to abandon them all I can do is gun for one of the few decent jobs left.
That's a hard working kid with a fuck ton of perso
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Sadly, if you place limits on yourself like having to live near family, it's not the government's responsibility to make sure you can do that.
Where I get the problem, sometimes you cannot get what you want, where you are, you have to move. I value family too, but sometimes you got to move away.
I've had to uproot my family multiple times and move away from family to keep food on the table. It's not easy, but it's necessary.
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I worked full time though college and still got my engineering degree. I managed to do it debt free even. I'm working on a masters degree now (some 30 years later)
So back before tuition skyrocketed you managed to work through school. You can manage to do that now as well provided you have a degree already and 30 years of work history.
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I worked full time though college and still got my engineering degree. I managed to do it debt free even. I'm working on a masters degree now (some 30 years later)
So back before tuition skyrocketed you managed to work through school. You can manage to do that now as well provided you have a degree already and 30 years of work history.
There are still ways to get through school if you want to work at it. It wasn't easy for me, I had to work at it.
For instance, my kids are both going to get degrees, debt free, largely because they chose to go to a community college at 1/10th the cost of the state school. There was no way I was going to be able to pay for more than that. Then, after 2 years, they transferred to the state school nearby and both worked and paid their way though college with only a little help from me. Had they borrowed th
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I note that you had to add a couple LARGE caveats. Note that not all college age people have parents that can or will provide a little help and not all are going to qualify for a loan.
Not saying there aren't people who spend 5 years at Harvard for a 4 year degree in traditional basket weaving who wonder why things aren't working out, but at the same time, you need to recognize that due to differing prevailing conditions, your experience 30 years ago might not have a lot of bearing on the contemporary situat
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I note that you had to add a couple LARGE caveats. Note that not all college age people have parents that can or will provide a little help and not all are going to qualify for a loan.
If you are enrolled in a federally approved college, you qualify for the student loan with few exceptions. All that need be true is you are enrolled as a student in good academic standing in an approved college and you are approved to be loaned both tuition, books and living expenses. Not that I'd recommend you do that. Work your way though w/o debt.
Not saying there aren't people who spend 5 years at Harvard for a 4 year degree in traditional basket weaving who wonder why things aren't working out, but at the same time, you need to recognize that due to differing prevailing conditions, your experience 30 years ago might not have a lot of bearing on the contemporary situation.
Which is why I discuss my kids experiences which are ongoing today. Yea, they are lucky in that I can afford to help them along, but I am NOT able to pay fo
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Note, the Homestead acts are no longer in effect. You actually can't stake a claim. Also, log cabins like gramps built with his own two hands and an axe are not at all up to code in most of the U.S.
Other differences to consider, your sons grew up with at least one college educated parent and not in or near poverty. I'm assuming you made sure their education was better than you got growing up. I have no idea what their living arrangements are like.
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Amazon cutting paychecks doesn't entitle them to cut corners with safety. Sure, if you cut corners, 90 at-risk workers can do the work of 100, but that's not a justification.
Now you might crunch the numbers and decide 90 is the *optimal* number taking probable increases in sick time into account. Put in an epidemic it's not just those 90 workers who are put at risk, it's everyone who comes in contact with them.
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Now, we have laws about workplace safety, and if you get injured on the job you have recourse in the law to be "made well" both physically and financially.
If you are killed or permanently disabled, there is no being "made well". You only get one life, and a lawsuit can't reverse causality.
And that's assuming you have the resources to sue for financial redress. How about criminal liability for bosses who create unsafe conditions and violate labour laws so fewer people get hurt in the first place?
They need to set a limit (Score:2)
True story, a factory my dad was a manager at back in the early 2000s started giving bonuses to supervisors based on the output of their production lines. All the lines seemed to plateau around a certain level, except for one that had gone significantly higher. So my dad started talking to the supervisor about how he was doing this, the supervisor explained it with some feelgood business buzzwords. Then he asked the workers about how this was happening, and the answer was much more straightforward - the sup
Fuck those workers. (Score:2)
Fuck them, Daddy Warbucks needs more money!! Just play them that stupid 'Sun will come out tomorrow' song on repeat, it's more than they deserve. And if they don't like it, they're easily replaced.
(Yay capitalism.)
They should get together on this (Score:3)
And collectively negotiate a safer workplace, so people won't be under schedule pressure to keep from getting sick, or from getting their clothes caught in the assembly line or the kinds of heavy machinery that are used in such modern industrial enterprises. Perhaps such a concept exists in some of the other colonies.
I shall have to send some correspondence via the postal mail system to my colleagues overseas asking if they know of precedent for such organization of the labor force, and perhaps if I'm excited enough about it, via telegram.
They're trying (Score:2, Informative)
I wasn't there when it happened, but knew a company that wanted to do mass layoffs without paying unemployment.
They got the local sheriffs to come in with guns holstered all scary like and stand in a room while everybody there was told they had to sign a bit of paper saying they quit "voluntarily". These are poor folks and some probably had some moving violations or even warrants. I
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I wasn't there when it happened, but knew a company that wanted to do mass layoffs without paying unemployment.
What was the name of the company?
They got the local sheriffs to come in with guns
Sheriffs of which county?
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The fact that I don't feel safe disclosing this information should tell you all you need to know about Unions in America.
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should have posted anonymously, or provide enough enough where a quick google search would put the pieces together.
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I wasn't there when it happened, but knew a company that wanted to do mass layoffs without paying unemployment.
What was the name of the company?
Urban Legend, LLC
They got the local sheriffs to come in with guns
Sheriffs of which county?
Friend-of-a-friend county