Lowe's employees are begging for stores to be closed, or at least made safer.

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Sunday March 22, 2020 · 7:57 AM PDT

2020/03/22 · 07:57

Several people I care about work at Lowe’s Home Improvement stores. These stores are classified as providing essential services, it seems. So the stores are still open. I am worried. A lot of the employees are older people. The stores hire a lot of young people (many are students) for the busy summer season, but at this time of year a large proportion of the folks on the floor are over 60. I looked at Lowe’s Facebook page, to see if others are commenting on this. They sure are.

There are many many comments, by employees and their spouses, asking Lowe’s to do more. To supply wipes and hand cleaner. To limit the number of shoppers allowed in the store at a time. To institute 6-foot distances in lines, and sterilize keypads, cart handles, etc. Or just to close stores. They report what I am hearing as well, that the stores are being visited by quite a lot of people who are bored and frustrated and just want somewhere to go. People come in wanting to have a long chat with an associate about a project they are thinking about for later on. It’s true that big home-improvement stores provide some essential goods and services — I am sure there are things that could go wrong in my house that would mean I would really need to be able to buy something they sell (plumbing, electrical, refrigeration...). But surely this function could be filled by online orders for curbside pickup. Providing entertainment (up close and personal) for people who are unhappy in isolation is not part of their essential services.

It is sad to see how these many posts (with dozens of people adding their voices to each) are completely ignored by whoever is handling the social media account, while the occasional post by a customer complaining about a late delivery or the like is responded to right away.

Here are just a few of the comments I saw:

All employees are at risk in these busy stores with all their kids out. There is NOTHING emergency related to buy in here. Let's think about workers for once.
We have ZERO LYSOL and stuff for our hands since it was all purchased. CLOSE THE STORES.

Lowes, your employees are worried. Close the stores!!!

YES YES YES! I have a 3 month old at home and am terrified of bringing this home to him. We have no hand sanitizer or Lysol wipes. ALLL EMPLOYEES come into contact with 20+ customers a day within a 2 foot radius. It’s insane that we are still open.

I feel like we don't even have any cleaning supplies for employees! We are all sharing one bottle of hand sanitizer and our wipes for the store are going fast. I live in a retirement town. and we still have so many people coming in.

Cali has a state wide shut down and our CEO STILL HAS NOT allowed us to shorten hours or close business per our governors request

IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR A WEEK😂. We are only an emergency supply store in case of NATURAL DISASTER😂. We have nothing essential in this time. We are out of TP, sanitizer and Lysol.
People don’t come in to buy things they need anyway. They’re coming in to buy paint, mulch and complain about stuff.

I know of several employees who are being placed in high risk situations to catch this illness with no precautionary measures being taken by store management. These employees especially those on the delivery team are very worried they are being put at risk to catch this illness but are terrified to speak out to management over fear of losing their jobs.

If Lowes truly cared about the well being of it's employees and customers they would stop all in home deliveries immediately. I have two family members in my household on the delivery team. You are putting them at risk, my family at risk and not to mention the customers they are delivering to. They go into 8-10 homes a day and travel in a 50 mile radius. This is how community spread happens.

I am a concerned wife of a delivery driver for the company. Why are they being sent out into people's homes during this crisis? This increases the potential for community spread and is very concerning from a family standpoint. They arent given masks or sanitizer, it increases their risk and others everyday they keep having to go out to deliver. Is anyone taking this into consideration?

Lowe's is putting my daugh at risk. She is a checkout person. They offer NO wipes, gloves, masks. They're supply of these items for sale only. And, they are out of them.

The way their checkouts are set up customers are less than 2 feet away from them.

Who is going to stand up for checkout people all over the country?

What do you want your delivery people to do when they show up at a house where customers are obviously coughing with an illness?

I am writing wanting to know WHY your store in Saratoga Springs, NY has NO Hand Sanitizer or NO Hand Sanitizer Wipes for the employees to use at their stations. You have many senior citizens that work there and it’s important to take care of them first. They shouldn’t even be allowed to work, either, but I’m sure they do cause they need the income and it’s the Lowe’s company that needs to give them time off WITH pay.

They are adjusting their policies day by day, as everybody is. And allowing some paid sick leave, That’s great. But the thing is, this illness is being spread by people who have no symptoms yet. Maybe by many people who will never have noticeable symptoms. Some employees are reporting that they can get paid leave if they have a doctor’s note certifying that they have a pre-existing risk factor. But as several commenters point out, being over 60 is a risk factor, but most doctors won’t write you a note for that!

We do have the ability to request two weeks off if we are exposed to someone with coronavirus, but a couple of employees have gone that route and their requests were denied," one employee said. They added that a coworker with a quarantined family member had their emergency paid-time-off request denied.

I tried to call but it’s takes 2 to 3 hrs to get answered and when I did get an answer they didn’t know what to do so I’m not going to work and I’m 73 and should not need a doctors note because of my age group this is rediculous

I don’t understand WHY a person 70+ has to get a doctor’s note to get paid leave during this crisis where people 65+ are at a very high risk. They should be told to go home, with pay, immediately! These people are working at this age because they need the income.

There are hundreds of these comments. I will give the last word to a commenter:

Lowe's Home Improvement you are not paying attention.

"World's First Climate Liability Suit" Succeeds - Could Be "a Game Changer"

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Thursday June 25, 2015 · 9:29 AM PDT

2015/06/25 · 09:29

In what is being called a landmark ruling that that could have worldwide effects, a Dutch court has ordered the government of the Netherlands to reduce the country's emissions by 25% within 5 years to protect its citizens from harm.

Jubilant campaigners said that governments preparing for the Paris climate summit later this year would now need to look over their shoulders for civil rights era-style legal challenges where emissions-cutting pledges are inadequate.
“Before this judgement, the only legal obligations on states were those they agreed among themselves in international treaties,” said Dennis van Berkel, legal counsel for Urgenda, the group that brought the suit.

“This is the first a time a court has determined that states have an independent legal obligation towards their citizens. That must inform the reduction commitments in Paris because if it doesn’t, they can expect pressure from courts in their own jurisdictions.”

The decision may be "a game changer":

The case is thought to be the first in Europe in which citizens try to hold a state responsible for lack of action on climate change.
It is also thought to be the first to use human rights legislation as a basis to protect people from climate change, with similar cases being prepared in Belgium, Norway and The Philippines.

The question is whether courts and legal systems in other countries will enable such suits to succeed:

"It's a sea change if other courts follow the lead of the Dutch court," said Michael Gerrard, who directs the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University. "It's sort of a break in the dyke, appropriate coming from the Netherlands. And we'll see how big the flow is that follows from it."
In the U.S., the Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit like this one. But Gerrard said other major countries like India have legal systems more likely to to rule in favor of the environmentalists. And if this does catch on, he said, it could become an entirely new front for addressing climate change.

The suit was filed by the Urgenda Foundation, an organization promoting sustainability, and 900 co-plaintiffs. It was launched in 2013.

The idea came from Dutch lawyer Roger Cox, whose book Revolution Justified argues that the judiciary must force governments into action on climate change. “You cannot ruin your world and accept that this climate change will have human rights infringement effects all over the world and then decide that there’s no role for the law to play,” Cox told Pacific Standard.

N.B.: Walter Einenkel posted on this yesterday, but there is more to read by now! John Crapper's diary today also shows the importance of the courts for climate action.

Update on Letter to the Editor calling for violent "regime change" - PA paper apologizes

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Thursday May 28, 2015 · 8:23 AM PDT

2015/05/28 · 08:23

Two days ago I shared news of a local paper in Pennsylvania that had printed a Memorial Day letter to the Editor calling for "regime change" with possible executions of President Obama and members of his administration. The response was awesome, with many Kossacks writing their own letters to the paper and sharing them in the discussion thread. Seems like you probably helped bring about a great end to this story! I'll supply some links below, but be aware that the paper's site allows you only five free page views per month, so choose which pages you want to view.

The local community responded as well, and the Sunbury Daily Item has printed six letters objecting strongly to the "regime change" letter. In addition, yesterday, the paper did two things - take down the offending letter from the website, and post this note:

Reader response
Updated: May 27, 2015 - 11:29 am
EDITOR'S NOTE: The Daily Item received more than 100 Letters to the Editor in response to a Monday Letter to the Editor. Here is a sampling of the letters received from around the nation.

.
They posted a selection of the letters they received - see if yours is there!

Today, the Daily Item published an editorial apologizing for printing the crucial paragraphs of the "regime change" letter. The editorial includes some attempts at face-saving, understandably enough, but on the whole I think it is a good response::

WE BUNGLED THE OBAMA ATTACK LETTER
There is no excuse for the letter The Daily Item published on Memorial Day. We did something we shouldn’t have and the readers who called us on it deserve accountability.

. . .

Nearly a decade of provocative and divisive rhetoric may have inured us to language that calls the president of the United States “the coward-in-chief” and the disrespectful use of the president’s first name. Both those elements are common to corners of the mediascape, having been uttered by commentators and candidates for president.

But we should have recognized that the final two metaphorical paragraphs of the Ramadi letter were inescapably an incitement to have the chief executive of our government executed. They should have been deleted.

. . .

Our readers and critics have reacted in force, as they should have. We accept their judgment and embrace the calls for heightened awareness and a higher standard for civil discourse.

The Daily Item apologizes for our failure to catch and remove the inappropriate paragraphs in the letter directed at President Obama. We will strive to do better in the future.

If you feel moved to let the Daily Item know what you think about its handling of this mistake, you can do it here.

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Memorial Day letter to the Editor calls for violent "regime change" and executions (UPDATED x2)

sfinx

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Monday May 25, 2015 · 8:11 PM PDT

2015/05/25 · 20:11

This is my first diary. I had always imagined that my first DK diary would be something substantial, carefully-crafted, and focused on the kind of special issues that I have particular knowledge of. But something local and immediate has come up that has provoked me to shelve all that and get this one up.

The local newspaper of a town in Pennsylvania that I know well, the Sunbury Daily Item, chose to recognize Memorial Day by publishing a letter to the editor that appears to call for violent "regime change" and the summary execution of the president and members of his administration.

To the families of those fallen heros whose blood lies on the sands of Iraq; don’t you think it might be time to rise up against an administration who has adequately demonstrated their gross incompetence?
I think the appropriate, and politically correct, term is regime change. Forgive me for being blunt, but throughout history this has previously been accompanied by execution by guillotine, firing squad, public hanging.

I have absolutely no reason to expect that current practice should be any different. The end result is elimination of the problem, the method is superfluous. When society dictates, the end always justifies the means, otherwise the action would not be taken.

This sort of promulgation of hatred, violence, and the overthrow of democracy is painfully commonplace online, but its appearance in print in a regular newspaper is something else, and printing it as in recognition of Memorial Day is really disgusting. If you are a resident of the Sunbury area and subscribe to the Daily Item (or advertise in it), you might like to reconsider that. Wherever you live, you can easily share your views about this with the Daily Item here: submit an online letter to the editor.

UPDATE: May 26th's issue of the Daily Item contains five letters to the editor, all offering strong objections to the publication of yesterday's misguided letter. You can see them here. FURTHER UPDATE: The hateful letter has been taken down - you can note its absence at that same web address. YET ANOTHER UPDATE: The Daily Item has apologized for "bungling" the troubling letter to the editor. See new diary here for more info.

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