[kevingadd]

What's a few avoidable deaths between friends, after all?

There are multiple active outbreaks in crowded factories and other facilities, just like an Amazon fulfillment warehouse. They do not have necessary safety equipment and procedures in place yet. Forcing people to show up to work under these conditions is murder. They could fix it, though.

A starting point would be Amazon providing tests and ensuring that everyone has been tested before returning to work, along with ensuring everyone has masks and gloves and enough time to thoroughly wash their hands throughout their shift. Press reports up until this point and complaints from employees suggest none of that is consistently the case.

[jonknee]

From their post on the topic it sounds like you should be happy with their plan:

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/how-amazon-priorit...

> Millions of masks have been distributed across our network. They are available to all Amazon associates, delivery service partners, Amazon Flex participants, seasonal employees, and Whole Foods Market stores employees. We are encouraging everyone to take and use them.

As for testing, they have been unable to do it through regular channels so they are building a lab to do it themselves:

> An important safety step might be regular testing of all employees for COVID-19, including those without symptoms. We have begun assembling equipment we need to build our first lab to process tests and hope to start testing small numbers of our frontline employees soon.

As for cleanliness:

> We have increased the frequency and intensity of cleaning at all sites, including regular sanitization of door handles, handrails, touch screens, scanners, and other frequently touched areas.

> Our enhanced cleaning has added almost 200 additional points of contact per site across our janitorial teams, and we’ve increased the size of our cleaning teams threefold to support our buildings.

> We require everyone to wash their hands often with soap and water for at least 20 seconds, especially after using the bathroom and before eating, as well as after blowing their nose, coughing, or sneezing. If soap and water are not readily available, alcohol-based hand sanitizer stations are easily accessible throughout our buildings.

> In addition to break times, employees can log out of their system to wash their hands whenever they choose, without worrying about impact on their performance goals.

[kevingadd]

Credit for the effort, but it has been a consistent issue over the last month and employees are still voicing concerns.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/21/enough-enough-l...

Once the vast majority of employees say it's actually fixed I'll give Amazon real credit for it, but it's empty PR until then.

[SpicyLemonZest]

This article mentions 300 people, which isn't a very big fraction of Amazon employees. I'm sure some employees who aren't participating sympathize, but what number would convince you that the "vast majority" think it's fine?

[mod]

> Forcing people to show up to work under these conditions is murder.

Nobody can be forced to show up, and no, that's not murder.

> A starting point would be...

Amazon has a page listing their pretty thorough adjustments for health & safety: https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/how-amazon-priorit...

[kevingadd]

Unpaid time off is forcing low-income workers to show up unless they want to starve.

[aaomidi]

Ah yes because they're not being held at gunpoint it's not forced.

Do you really have a very literal definition of forced? No nuance or anything?

[jshevek]

The nuanced approach is to reject extremist characterizations, not embrace them.

[aaomidi]

Yeah unfortunately you're in the wrong here.

There are multiple levels of forced. It's not an on and off switch, as much as people make it out to be.

[jshevek]

In what way am I in the wrong? I did not claim and do not believe that there is only one level of 'forced'. No one here is making it out to be that way.

Edit: Just because there is a range of accepted meanings for the word 'forced' doesn't mean that all uses of the word 'forced' are correct. Even with the most low key interpretations of the word 'forced', I don't think that this is in any way the correct word for this situation.

[newacct583]

> What's a few avoidable deaths between friends, after all?

Amazon is about as close to the ideal of an "essential employer" as anyone is, though. They're shipping a huge amount of food and other essentials. Objectively, a package delivered through a managed professional environment is less risky and involves fewer potential transmission events than one purchased at retail.

Online sellers, where they have product to deliver, are the ones we want to prioritize keeping open.

Now... there's lots to complain about with Amazon's response in other ways. It's very reasonable to argue that their workers need more PPE, employer-provided testing and notification, hazard pay, better safety practices, etc...

But if you want to argue that Amazon should shut down... who do you want to be open instead?

[jcims]

I'm glad I waited an extra minute to comment b/c you did all the work. Amazon has allowed me to limit my local travels to two physical environments for essentially the past six weeks. There's a value to that in reducing transmission.

[aaomidi]

By requiring others to do that for you and paying them pennies for what value they're providing.

I'd agree with you if the company decided to not take profit during this time and paid the employees the same amount of value they produce.

[bhupy]

> By requiring others to do that for you and paying them pennies for what value they're providing.

The median wage of an Amazon Warehouse worker is about $60,000 / year, which is above the median wage in the US[1]. The 25th-percentile wage for the same worker is $53,000 — still higher than the median wage, and this is an entry level position that requires no college eduction.

Amazon also provides 401(k) matching for their warehouse workers and provides them the same group health insurance as their software engineers and executives[2][3]. It is quite possibly the most generous set of benefits currently available to an entry-level low-skill worker with no college education.

> I'd agree with you if the company decided to not take profit during this time and paid the employees the same amount of value they produce.

Couple things: 1) I think you're overestimating how much profit Amazon makes on its retail business; the margins are razor thin. 2) profit is just the cost of labor for the managers, I.e. the people that are coordinating the labor and calling the high-level shots. This includes coming up with the policies and systems to ensure the company can continue to operate in the midst of a global pandemic.

Finally, Amazon employed 798,000 people as of 2019, and added 100,000 new jobs in the last month alone, with 50,000 current openings outstanding. A lot of the margin goes into literally providing all of these wages and benefits for nearly 1 million people. This is more than many industrialized nations.

[1] https://www.paysa.com/salaries/amazon--warehouse-worker

[2] https://www.aboutamazon.com/amazon-fulfillment/working-here/...

[3] https://www.glassdoor.com/Benefits/Amazon-US-Benefits-EI_IE6...

[whywhywhynot]

The first number is so laughably far away from reality. Do you have any idea how many hours a week you would have to work to make $60k at $15/hr? Does the average warehouse worker make double the starting rate or work 70 hour weeks?

As someone who works in the industry I do agree however that they do an okay job taking care of their people compared to others. But nobody is going to write an article about how shit it is to work at a warehouse owned by a company no one has ever heard of. Amazon has actually done a lot for people at those places too though, if there is an amazon warehouse nearby starting at $15 an hour nobody is going to come work for you for barely above minimum wage anymore, it has definitely put some out competitive wage pressure.

[strikhedonia_]

The Paysa number is probably correct... For the tiny minority of workers in Amazon Warehouses who are salaried. If we look at actual wages (not just salaried employees) it would be far lower.

Terribly naive to include that point in the argument.

[bhupy]

Do you have access to more reliable numbers?

[kevingadd]

Like I said, they can fix the problem. It sounds like they're trying, but it's not proven that they've gotten all the way. In the past they were clearly inadequate and it's why employees went on strike and publicly protested.

"Essential employees" shouldn't be put at risk just because people need them to ship stuff out. We shouldn't put "essential employees"' immune-compromised relatives at risk either.

[newacct583]

> "Essential employees" shouldn't be put at risk just because people need them to ship stuff out.

But... isn't that what "essential" means? No one claims this is fair. It's not fair that as software developers we get an automatic pass to continue our careers working from home while our bartender friends have to file for unemployment either.

But at the end of the day we need stuff to live. Someone needs to run the power and intenet and water infrastructure. And someone needs to deliver goods to people who need them.

I mean: I agree we need to make this better for those folks. I just don't see how Amazon demanding essential workers come to work is the wrong thing here.

[flyGuyOnTheSly]

>A starting point would be Amazon providing tests and ensuring that everyone has been tested before returning to work

Amazon can't win.

If they did that, the newspaper headlines would read "Bezos demands DNA samples of workers as a prerequisite to being paid."

[makomk]

I don't know about that, but there'd definitely be newspaper headlines about the number of workers testing positive implying that it's somehow Amazon's fault. We've already seen this with one of Amazon's NYC warehouses (over numbers that seem very much in line with NYC in general), various food manufacturers, etc. Apparently some meat-packing companies are now reluctant to test any of their workers because of the bad publicity and the damage it does - they'd rather just close down the entire site.

[kevingadd]

COVID tests aren't DNA tests. It's a swab of the back of your throat (through the nose, oof) to test for a specific virus. It's not hard to find the specific stuff used to perform the tests, it's out there on the internet, the CDC published it. Are we really descending into paranoia about Amazon trying to genetically profile employees?

[SpicyLemonZest]

There's a big population of people who just start from the premise that Amazon must be doing something wrong and search for facts to justify it. I lost my ability to assume good faith when people complained they should pay $15 an hour, they started paying $15 an hour, and then the controversy immediately restarted about how greedy they are to not pay more.

[jonknee]

I'm pretty sure they could start paying a minimum wage of $30 an hour and people would be irate that they're making it impossible to hire anyone because Amazon is overpaying. When you're the biggest player there is nowhere to hide.

[beerandt]

This probably won't be too far off, if the current level of unemployment benefits holds. Just the $600 a week on top of state benefits comes out to $15/hr.

[bhupy]

Never mind the fact that Amazon does 401(k) matching and provides its warehouse workers the same group health insurance plan as their software engineers, which might possibly be the most generous health insurance plan for an entry-level position that requires no college degree.

[tracker1]

I'm right there with you... I don't like Trump, even if I agree on a lot of policy actions/choices, but the guy can't have a good day with a lot of people. So many are outright lying to push an agenda over truth, and you can't really rely on anyone to be informed anymore.

Right now, I'm much more concerned that we're on the brink of war with China and Iran... partly because China sees us as weakened over COVID, I'm not sure on Iran's motivations right now either... With how much of our tech comes from taiwan, it's really concerning... this could literally set the world back a decade for a decade.

[tracker1]

It's always interesting seeing a comment go up as high as a three and as low as -1, back and forth.

Oh no! He said something not negative about Trump... downvote now!

[jonknee]

> COVID tests aren't DNA tests.

Correct, because SARS-CoV-2 is an RNA virus and contains no DNA. But the test does work by detecting the viral RNA and it is hard to find the specific stuff (reagents) to perform the test and that's a big reason why we're all sheltering in place without a proper nationwide testing regime.

[mardifoufs]

They are not forcing them since they are allowed to take time off. You can't self quarantine forever anyways, standard procedure is 14 days of quarantine if you think you may have been exposed to the virus or if you have any symptoms.

[kevingadd]

Unpaid time off. How are people supposed to eat and pay rent if their only available leave is unpaid? How will they afford their hospital bills after being exposed?

[sida]

Same as the 20+ million Americans who are laid off and seeking unemployment?

[kevingadd]

I'm not sure why that makes it okay to add to that population? Amazon has the resources to temporarily cover paid leave until they can guarantee safe conditions in their warehouses for employees. Regions that have prematurely relaxed their virus controls have seen new outbreaks, the same could happen in warehouses. It's in everyone's best interest for Amazon to offer paid leave until their workplaces have been proven to be safe, which is going to take a bit even after all the appropriate measures are in place.

[bhupy]

The safety net is by far the better way to address this, it's a drop in the bucket relative to the total cost of the safety net.

> It's in everyone's best interest for Amazon to offer paid leave until their workplaces have been proven to be safe, which is going to take a bit even after all the appropriate measures are in place.

Amazon appears to think that your "until" condition is here now, per the safety measures they purport to be taking.

[xchaotic]

Yeah, I don’t see how few extra bucks is worth literally risking life. Total numbers look big but really it’s $120 more per each shift where you can be exposed or expose others to a deadly virus.

[throwaway744678]

Remember that you are risking your life every day getting out of your bed, even without this virus.

[macspoofing]

>What's a few avoidable deaths between friends, after all?

There is no vaccine coming for a year, maybe two, maybe never. "Flattening the curve" is ONLY a delaying strategy to not swamp the health-care system and hope that some treatments are developed (no guarantees there either). COVID is going to be part of our lives.

Are you saying we should shelter in place forever?

>A starting point would be Amazon providing tests

What tests? Are you expecting every employer to test their workers every day?

>along with ensuring everyone has masks and gloves and enough time to thoroughly wash their hands throughout their shift.

That's reasonable. Masks + social distancing + gloves, and policies for hand washing and disinfecting of commonly used surfaces. I suspect Amazon isn't too far from that, and if they are it's only because of the global PPE shortage.

[kevingadd]

IMO a starting point is: Single test for all employees before return to work, 100% guarantee that everyone has a mask for their shifts, the facility has ventilation, and they have gloves. 100% guarantee that facilities have soap and running water.

In the past all of what I mention has been a problem in warehouses, and it's why employees are protesting. Amazon can fix this, but it's been a problem very recently.

It's super reasonable if they can't gather up a bunch of N95s and medical grade gloves, but paper surgical masks or cloth masks should be feasible by now. It sounds like they're working on their own testing infrastructure, which is great.

[CuriouslyC]

The death rate with proper medical care is very low. The avoidable deaths are a direct result of a swamped medical system.