Maybe this was reported earlier in the week. I just read it tonight myself, though. If this is old news, my apologies.
Seems like a boycott of Amazon.com is in order, as it would appear that obvious violations of worker's rights and safety are being committed in at least one of the giant online retailer's distribution warehouses.
It's a shame, too. I buy so much stuff from Amazon. It breaks my heart to do it, but I cannot in good conscience buy from them anymore :\
After reading this report, you might think that we were living in the year 1911, when labor abuses were common and considered acceptable practice. But nope. It's actually 2011. Surprise!
The Morning Call, a daily newspaper in Allentown, Pa., delivered a grim picture last weekend about what it is like to work in the local Amazon warehouse, sorting material for delivery to millions of eager customers. In eastern Pennsylvania, like just about everywhere else, jobs are lacking, and Amazon is one of the few places that is hiring. Many workers are brought on by a staffing company as temporary workers ("Are you interested in working in a fun, fast-paced atmosphere earning up to $12.25 per hour?" the ad asks.) This transient status gives them little incentive to complain, even as the heat boiled upward over the summer. The result was an environment that, one employee told the paper, resembled "working in a convection oven while blow-drying your hair."
In a lengthy and heavily reported article, The Call said a warehouse employee contacted the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on June 2 to report that the heat index in the warehouse had reached 102 degrees, and that 15 workers had collapsed. The employee also said workers who were sent home because of the heat received disciplinary points.
Eight days later, the paper said, an emergency room doctor at a local hospital saw enough Amazon employees suffering from heat-related injuries to call OSHA and report "an unsafe environment."
So many ambulances responded to medical assistance calls at the warehouse during a heat wave in May, the paper said, that the retailer paid Cetronia Ambulance Corps to have paramedics and ambulances stationed outside the warehouse during several days of excess heat over the summer. About 15 people were taken to hospitals, while 20 or 30 more were treated right there, the ambulance chief told The Call.
Absolutely disgusting.
Oh, and in case you're wondering, Amazon just became the northwest's second $100 billion dollar company. I think they can, y'know... afford to cool their warehouse distribution centers with some fucking air conditioning systems.
You know, one of the things us progressive members of society should be working on is finding ways to fundamentally change corporate thinking and culture. I know it's kind of always been this way, but it seems that there was at least a period in American history when this giant companies were at least afraid to abuse their workers in such a manner. Nowadays though, it seems like we're back to the robber baron-era way of thinking. It's perfectly fine to pay your employees dick-shit, put them in awful working environments and dock them for having the gall to complain (or get sick).
It all just makes me want to vomit. Rhetorically speaking, at least. Strangely though, I'm not really pissed or outraged. I'm just... I just can no longer be shocked, I suppose. American society and culture – both on an individual and industrial/business level – has sunk deep into Hell. If any one word could sum up the last 30 or so years, I think it would have to be "greed". Tragically, I would bet that we're going to hear about reports similar this Amazon abuse being committed by other large corporations for at least another decade before enough people come to their senses again and truly demand a stop to this.
I really hope overstock.com isn't as vile as this.