As profitable as Amazon is (finally), how on earth could they excuse making their workers work in those conditions?

I read the comments on that story and someone pointed out that if Amazon paid an ambulance company to be in the parking lot, there would be no 911 calls and nobody to notice if Amazon's workers started dropping like flies... like venues that host a rave, and have emergency workers available on site so there'd be no need to involve 911. In other words, they knew there was a high likelihood of there being a problem, and they were deliberately trying to weasel out of doing anything about it. If that was their reason for having paramedics in the parking lot, that is completely heartless.

And it's rare to have paramedics and ambulances standing by most construction sites.

Oh, and the pay is often less than 11$ an hour these days..

great logic --- for a blood sucking vampire.

Not what I expect on a pro-labor Democratic board.

If construction pays less than $11/hr (cite please), I would suggest being a supermarket checker; because, around here, checkers start at $12/hr.

But, seriously, if back-breaking labor is paid that poorly, we are back to 1880s conditions; and workers have a right to protest.

If you are trying to support workers in this corporatocracy, your statement sure didn't come out that way.

Lots of DUers are sooo concerned for the poor Amazon workers while ignoring the plight of workers who often have it even worse, sometimes much worse. The selective outrage on DU sometimes pushes my buttons because I have a somewhat different perspective than many here.

I support workers, all workers, not only those who work indoors.

You don't support the workers being discussed here.

these workers are all they care about? Did someone say that?? "I don't care about construction workers, I only care about these Amazon workers"??

Did you notice that the OP was about the Amazon workers specifically and did it cross your mind that anyone who reacted negatively to the conditions of those workers most likely feels the same way about all workers who work under similar conditions?

I've been reading and posting on DU long enough to have a pretty good idea what the collective opinion is here.

Farm workers get a little love on DU but in my experience most other outdoor workers are all but invisible on DU.

Sometimes I make too many assumptions and one of them is that Democrats will always be on the side of the workers, all workers. And I can't say for sure what the consensus of DUers on Construction workers rights is, but just so you know, I totally support them having safe working conditions and know that is not often the case. Sorry if I misunderstood, or assumed something I should not have

Which is not an entirely unjust stereotype but us lower class white males are not much loved on DU, there was a lengthy thread on GD recently letting us know just how pathetic we are because we aren't wealthy given all the advantages in life we have.

And then some of us wonder why lower class white males as a group are not interested in voting Democratic..

job of lifting individuals, often without the help of heavy equipment, and then literally cleaning up shit.

Lower-class white men aren't given all of life's advantages, but there ARE advantages. Here's a nice way of explaining things that even white guys may be able to "get":

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is/

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

Okay: In the role playing game known as The Real World, “Straight White Male” is the lowest difficulty setting there is.

This means that the default behaviors for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise. The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get.

The just want their lights, telephone and TV back on as soon as possible.

So deal with the downed live wires, trime the broken branches, and ignore the heat or cold.

construction workers or other workers in bad conditions? There have been other threads dealing with that specifically on here and people have been just as supportive of the workers in those situations. Many of us know and/or are close to construction workers, miners, etc., and have a good idea of what they must endure for ridiulously low compensation. But this thread is specifically about Amazon workers. If you want to start a thread about construction workers, then please, feel free, and I'm confident that the majority here would be just as supportive, as they have been in the past.

It's like getting angry on a thread about, say, the civil rights movement and the horrors that the Freedom Riders endured because it didn't also mention Holocaust victims, which must then mean that no one cares about Holocaust victims, only civil rights victims, when the threads are two entirely different subject matters.

I don't care what the fuck you say, the standards exist for a reason. OSHA has wide discretion to determine whether or not an environment is safe. They decided in this case it was not and could be improved.

Yes the pay and conditions have taken a hit in construction due to the economy and weakening of unions. My dad worked construction for over forty years and never worked in 110 degree heat. During summer months the work day began before dawn and ended early because of the heat.

...as effectively in a humid environment. It's not bogus and there's a reason OSHA uses it. OSHA also prescribes breathable protective clothing for outdoor construction workers. A high heat index and that clothing doesn't work.

Breathable protective clothing may or may not be good, depending on wind conditions. It limits evaporative cooling.

A great deal of construction work is inside completed shells of buildings that don't have the AC even installed, let alone turned on, they can easily get as hot or hotter than those Amazon warehouses, often they have no air circulation at all, not even exhaust fans.

Puzzling. You can't air condition outdoors. You can air condition warehouses.

My dad worked in various types construction from the middle 1950's to late 1990's. Mostly bridges and highways in California and Arizona. During the summer months work began before sunrise and ended in early afternoon because of high temps. The pay for a basic laborer in the 70's - 90's was double what you state. Before unions and osha you would find working conditions in construction like you describe. Sadly since the early 2000's, unions have weakened and we are once again seeing our labor force underpaid and put in unbearable working conditions.

You can not compare a closed in building temps with outdoor temps. Think of the inside of a car vs outside heat.

Sheetrock hangers and finishers, trim carpenters, carpet layers, acoustical ceiling installers, tile layers, door hangers, all of those never work outdoors but seldom work in air conditioned space..

And I'm talking of pay rates and conditions today, not what they were fifteen or thirty years ago.

possible to take breaks and set up fans without fear of repercussions.

If the workers aren't represented, then they can agitate in the way they see fit -- for much better pay in a shitty condition, or OK pay in a better condition, or good pay in manageable conditions, or whatever.

If they put up with exploitative conditions even after knowing that they can fight to make things better, then they're suckers, straight up.

You are talking a lot about the contempt for working-class white guys on this board. That's a pretty broad group, and IME there are working-class white guys who know how to fight and keep respect on the job, and those who don't, among others. And if people stand up and fight for themselves, I respect it. If, after knowing what it takes to make things better for themselves, they choose the crap shoot or to lower standards for someone else through their own inaction, then yes, I feel contempt for that.

And in North Carolina, where the DNC is going to be held later this year, union membership is only 2.9%, the lowest in the country.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

You feel contempt for 93.1% of the private work force?

People who make really heroic efforts to miss my point often make the list, though.

It really helps with communication..

People did it for years before AC.

The fact they had medics ready to treat folks tells me they knew they were demanding much, paying little and wanted to hide the consequences...back in the bad old times (post shirtwaist factory atrocity)...I am sure productivity was EXPECTED to be lower in such conditions..not today! And I bet the pay could support a family of four. Again, not today!

I think he made about $10 an hour. He lived in a duplex when I met him and ate nothing but banquet tv dinners.

That we should all passively accept the imposition of wage slavery?

I was just giving perspective. Jeez.

Seriously.

The cheapest meals available got too expensive.

That's not what I'm saying. Why do people on DU have to always jump to the biggest conclusions and the lowest common denominator?
Do you know how next to impossible it is to air condition a large space like that? It is not cost effective. They survived with the door open and very large industrial fans. I'm just saying people have done it for years, decades, centuries. They survived. You can make a warehouse comfortable, but the reality is, that warehouse is never going to be below 90 degrees in the summer. If you don't realize what you're getting into working in a warehouse, you fail to prepare for your job. It is what it is in warehouse work. A bunch of people I know have done it for years. People adjust to the heat.
Have you ever worked out in a warehouse? My husband did it for YEARS, and he was telling me he was comfortable and it didn't at all hurt him. They provided gallons of gatorade and they just drank a lot. And get this: he liked it.

related fatalities due to working in such conditions? Prove it.

I find your post sickening. And if people were as comfy as your dear stalwart hubby, then why the fuck have ambulances lined up?

...but people didn't have AC until the 20th century. People survive in the desert today without AC. I think you're overreacting.

People didn't have lots of things until the 20th century. hell, women didn't have the vote. We didn't have antibiotics. Children did factory work. So what?

Whatever. I really don't care. Some people, like myself, live in realty and reason. Others live in the land of make believe. I only speak from experience.

You did not do that work. It is not your experience, it is a story you were told by someone who loves you, and my experience tells me that those who are working to provide for a family are not always fully forthcoming in reporting their own personal happiness in the work. 'Dad never complained' they say when Dad dies early 'why didn't he mention those dizzy spells sooner?'

What's your point?

Advances in technology are supposed to make things better, and when money is spent on them they improve in design while also making everyone richer by spreading the wealth and reducing other costs (I assume a wrongful death liability suit is expensive).

AC, many buildings and houses were constructed in such a way as to maximize coolness, including with certain types of ventilation, windows, etc., etc. Nowadays most buildings don't have that, hell, many don't even have windows you can open, so it affects people a lot more.

my understanding is that Amazon employed sub-contractors who constantly upped the pace!

Productivity goes way, way down when workers are forced into sweltering conditions.

Amazon is probably saving money in the long run by having AC.

Pay an extra $5-$10 an hour and switch to people willing to work an overnight shift.

They will come out WAY ahead.

It's in PA. Are they supposed to get the entire warehouse toasty warm in the winter too?

If you can't provide humane working conditions w/ uninsulated warehouse - don't build those.

I'm sure this comes as no surprise to the execs.
Now they have to behave - some what - like real human beings.

lol

Let's see how fast those 12.95 shirts go up to $100.

I can tell you're definitely not a fan of the pro-labor wing of the Democratic Party.

Some jobs are hot and awful and there's really no way around it.

Like roofing, construction, garbage pick up, road crew.

Warehouse jobs generally pay a few dollars more per hour than the prevailing starting wage in an area.

There is NO way to air condition a warehouse. However, there can be cool down rooms within the warehouse. Instead of two 15 minute breaks people could have 5 minute breaks every hour.

how come they're installing it? Do tell, since you're such a brilliant expert.

Look up how AC's work and check back? OK?

They heat those buildings. duh.

I've worked them.

Saying they don't doesn't mean no one does.

You actually think they don't heat warehouses in PA or Wisconsin or Vermont or Alaska or wherever it gets very cold in the winter.

gad.

And I'm not paying 100 dollars for a hammer.

It can be done.

Even if it's really cold out, because Costco is at such a comfortable temp.

Think Las Vegas in the sun,or West Edmonton Mall when it's -35F outside.

have heating, usually from unit heaters spaced in a fashion to wash the exterior walls. Sometimes by gas-fired packaged units. Sometimes by infrared tube heaters. A smaller percentage have cooling, but that number is rising steadily every year as the cost goes down. Even in the South it gets cold enough in the winter to require heating, especially when you have dock doors opening and closing all day that allow trucks to dock and load/unload.

And less than 5% of the warehouses I've dealt with weren't insulated. Some were insulated poorly, but it's been so long since I saw one that truly wasn't insulated I couldn't even tell you the name of the project. And I remember drawing a big X across that warehouse on my proposal and writing "not in contract." I lost that bid because of that exception, and it was fine with me.

(Worker comfort aside, there are also a lot of warehouses which require a tight tolerance on temperature and humidity, or else their product will spoil. Pharma storage comes to mind right off the bat, there are many others)

cheap prices or unsafe workplaces?

Come out with it, will ya?

Safer workplaces mean $100 shirts. Drink the kool-aid!

for example, paint the roof white for starters!

an ambulance company to sit out and wait for the employees to drop like flies from heatstroke, which happened EVERY day. I guess that's less important to you than being able to get cheap priced crap that you don't need. The added-up costs for the daily ambulance workers to sit out and wait all day, plus the exorbitant, bloated gazillion-dollar executive salaries and perks at the expense of everything else in the company, sure shows that they sure as shit have the money, they just didn't consider it any kind of priority. They're like the companies who spend millions fighting unions, when it would actually cost less to implement decent pay and working conditions for employees. But getting your unnecessary cheap priced crap is more important, I guess.

And I have been in plenty of warehouses that have had AC. It IS possible. Your bleeding heart for the poor, put-upon company is duly noted and wondered at on a site such as this.

at the bottom of the thread. He actually does this for a living, sweetie.

You've just been making up dog shit in this thread.

It's despicable, dear.

Disgusting.

I am willing to bet you that reducing the temperature in that Amazon warehouse will INCREASE EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY.

In a 110 degree atmosphere you want to move around less in order to avoid overheating. Inescapable fact of physics, not to mention human behavior. IOW: people work slower, as a survival tactic. That reduces productivity. This is an irrefutable fact.

Reducing the temperatures in that warehouse will enable workers to work faster, thus improving their productivity. This will significantly reduce the cost increase of adding an AC system that can handle the temperatures in that building. The ONLY rational argument that can be had here, is not whether productivity will rise, but rather, how much.

And a $13 shirt going up to $100 over this? Absolutely irrational. It is impossible. Your argument is a talking point and a very inaccurate one at that.

Looks like they have some wiggle room on the price points....

. . . is whether you have to pay more for something.

on your math, there. The price might go up to, say, $13.49. Some realistic math would be good, I think. Arguing that workers shouldn't work in a safe environment because you might have to pay a little more for your goods isn't a progressive thing, I think.

And it won't happen, because if the companies put the price up that much, their goods won't sell.

Do you also think that workers shouldn't get good wages because it might increase the prices of the goods?

Shipping never ran on an 8 to 5 schedule.

It was built very different from a warehouse.

Try again.

Last edited Sat May 26, 2012, 12:14 PM - Edit history (1)

I don't think you understand this issue, really. The fact of the matter is that working conditions need to be appropriate for people to work in. That's a higher priority than money.

WTF?

They insulate warehouses, and they heat and AC warehouses. That's exactly what a Costco or Sam's Club is, and it's not 110 degrees in summer nor 15 degrees in winter when I shop at Costco.

And, as a poster said, Wal-Marts are nothing more than tweaked warehouses.

Home Depot and Lowes stores are the same way. I have shopped at Lowes in the heat of summertime and it is comfortable indoors there. If it wasn't, people would not shop there. Period.

And personally I would rather pay a few bucks more for things if it meant every working person was making a liveable wage with affordable healthcare.

But, it is doubtful the price of anything will go up. That isn't how something like this works.

I didn't even think of Home Depot or Lowe's.

The 'dry side' of those facilities are air conditioned.

Last year at in August at Pauls Valley, OK Wal Mart DC the outside temp was 108F.

It would have been deadly inside that building with no A/C.

Can't have them paying A/C or decent wages - they might have to cut back a million or two on exec bonuses ...

It's not impossible! I notice a lot of retail establishments around here that are nothing but huge, well lit warehouses that are actually comfortable winter and summer. Maybe it's because when people have a choice to go elsewhere, management finds the money to take care of the problem!

that folks have bad working conditions. I call BS on your entire post - I bet you've never worked a warehouse job in your life. If you had you would be cheering this decision.

How do I know that? I've actually done so. Not a typical warehouse job, but when I was a paralegal we would sometimes do document productions in crazy places (ie wherever the company decided they wanted to put us). We reviewed documents (which also included lugging the boxes around & stacking them on pallets - but we did get to sit down and review too so it wasn't constant) ... in an airport hanger in Florida in the spring. 80+ every day. It was only a couple of weeks and obviously I lived to tell about it - but I would not want that to be someone's job for their entire life under those kind of working conditions.

That's silly and illogical.

blatant disregard for the conditions of other workers.

(pssst by the way - adding smilies doesn't make your words less of a personal attack)

DAMN RIGHT!

Yeah. lol! Of Course I mean that!.

AC'd Warehouses. LOL!

been coal miners.

Just one of hundreds of global citations that could be made
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain

Legacy

In the long-term, the battle raised awareness of the appalling conditions faced by miners in the dangerous West Virginia coalfields, and led directly to a change in union tactics into political battles to get the law on labor's side via confrontations with recalcitrant and abusive managements and thence to the much larger organized labor victory a few years later during the New Deal in 1933. That in turn led to the UMWA helping organize many better-known unions such as the Steel workers during the mid-thirties. To some degree, also it is important to note that this defeat had major implications for the UMWA as a whole. After world war one, as the coal industry began to collapse, union mining was no longer financially sustainable. Because of the defeat in West Virginia, the union was undermined also in PA and KY. By the end of 1925, Illinois was the only remaining unionized state which could compete, in term of soft coal production, with the others listed.
In the final analysis, management's success was a pyrrhic victory that helped lead to a much larger and stronger organized labor movement in many other industries and labor union affiliations and umbrella organizations like the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO).


That's what the Amazon workers just did. Protested and won better conditions.


Shameful seeing such absurd tripe on DU.

The better-known term often used in the industry is "distribution centers."

Yes, distribution centers can be -- and sometimes are -- air conditioned. Food distribution centers that handle refrigerated and frozen food items are not just air conditioned, they are literally kept at refrigerated or freezing temperatures ALL THE TIME. So get over the notion that air conditioning in warehouse/distribution buildings is not possible or commonly done.

True, distribution centers for refrigerated/frozen food items were built with the insulation and cooling systems in place for them. Do you know for a fact that Amazon's distribution centers (being for non-food items) were built without insulation? Perhaps they are insulated (to cut down on winter heating costs), and the existing insulation is contributing to the heat not escaping in the summer?

If the buildings are not already insulated, then part of the process of installing air conditioning will certainly involve adding insulation first. It's not hard to do, and there are companies which exist for the purpose of adding insulation to warehouse buildings.

If the idea of air conditioned warehouses sends you into fits of laughter at the absurdity of the idea, you really need to get out more and learn about the subjects of which you speak.

they're likely to die of explosions or cave-ins, largely caused by their employers thumbing their noses at any safety procedures and continually paying fines for noncompliance with said procedures instead of spending the fine money on actually, you know, complying so that they don't have a ton of deaths and injuries on their hands (I'm looking specifically at you, Massey Energy). But your concern would likely only be for the poor put-upon execs and company, whose millions in compensation would have to be cut back in order to provide a safe working environment.

And I've worked in warehouses in the past, I've never worked in one that did NOT have AC and heat. You are, quite simply, unbe-fucking-lievable and incredible. How much is the Chamber of Commerce paying you to shill your hateful anti-worker garbage?

their employers' profits.

'Natural sunlight' is the least of a miner's worries; the number of miners who have died, quickly through accidents, or slowly through lung disease, as a result of mine managers valuing profits over lives is ENORMOUS! Are you OK with this?

Telling laborers to suck up shitty conditions is not what the Democratic Party used to be about.

Making the ludicrous claim that prices will go up by a factor of almost 8 because of a mere $50 M investment in a multi-billion dollar business is the kind of obscene distortion I expect from the GOP propaganda factory, not from Democrats.

If this thread is any indication, the troll level on this board is approaching critical.

What a disgusting pile of responses.

Sickening and sad.

Some folks don't give a rats ass about hellish working conditions as long as they get what they want cheap. Shameful indeed.

I've been lurking here for years enjoying reading some very insightful comments from generally a very intelligent crowd, but for a while now I can't believe some of the responses. I don't know what to think about them. Are they Republicans disguising as Democrats and trying to slowly infiltrate this board, or are they so blind to the fact that they're spouting right-wing talking points and taking up their attitudes. Very disappointing.

Is it so hard for Amazon to spring $52 million so that their own people, our fellow human beings, can have a safe and comfortable place to work. It's not like their asking to be royally pampered, and it's not like Amazon will go bankrupt for it.

The right wing Republicans are switching over because the ultra-right wingers have hijacked the Republican Party and are purging it of moderates. The result is this: A Democratic Party full of people who hold fundamentally right wing ideas on a whole host of issues.

and right wing modes of personal communication. Creepy and chilling.

Huh.