Amazon: Staff told to work overtime as virus spikes demand | Hacker News Reader

Amazon: Staff told to work overtime as virus spikes demand

bbc.com

102 pointsNoB4Mouth55 comments

I doubt Amazon warehouses represent a significant transmission vector and what little threat there may be is largely outweighed by the good these warehouses are doing to help with the situation.

I also doubt Amazon employs many elderly or high-risk individuals as warehouse workers. I also doubt they would refuse to make exceptions for those workers.

Right about now, I'd just be happy for the job security because the coming recession is going to be rough.

What job security? If a drawn out recession develops and is truly “rough,” warehouse workers will simply be let go. There are few jobs with less job security than warehouse work.

Amazon's delivery network is almost to the point of being a public utility.

It's not going anywhere.

Yes, that means that "Amazon delivery person" is a job that will continue existing. It does not mean it will have the same person in it.

> I doubt Amazon warehouses represent a significant transmission vector

Well, we know that COVID-19 can survive up to 24 hours on cardboard. That actually gives a simple way to avoid outgoing spread: make sure items don't begin shipping, or don't leave the truck, for at least 30 hours from packaging.

It means no 2-day shipping, but I think even "fast" shipping times are at something like a week for most people right now, so that's not much of a problem.

Everything I’m buying on Amazon now has delivery dates four days or more out, whereas in normal times it’s one or two days. Maybe they are quarantining packages. Or they could just be backed up due to increased demand.

> Well, we know that COVID-19 can survive up to 24 hours on cardboard

Do you have a source for that? Nicholas Christakis (John Hopkins MD, infectious disease specialist) said on most surfaces, SARS-cov2 (the virus, COVID-19 is the disease) can survive an hour. He did mention it depends on the environment (it would only survive a few minutes on copper surfaces for example), so is cardboard able to hold the virus along longer? Is there data on this?

I think we just don't know yet. The WHO has this to say:

"It is not certain how long the virus that causes COVID-19 survives on surfaces, but it seems to behave like other coronaviruses. Studies suggest that coronaviruses (including preliminary information on the COVID-19 virus) may persist on surfaces for a few hours or up to several days. This may vary under different conditions (e.g. type of surface, temperature or humidity of the environment).

If you think a surface may be infected, clean it with simple disinfectant to kill the virus and protect yourself and others. Clean your hands with an alcohol-based hand rub or wash them with soap and water. Avoid touching your eyes, mouth, or nose."

https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses

https://www.newsweek.com/coronavirus-survive-plastic-cardboa...

> and can survive on cardboard for a day—up to 24 hours—post-contamination.

And the actual paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

Tangential, but the only Nicholas Christakis I know of is a sociologist[0]. Is there another one?

[0] https://sociology.yale.edu/people/nicholas-christakis

“Survive” “viable”. Do these terms means if you touch a box and then touch your face you’re done, or only that the rna found was not degraded to the point that it was recognizable?

The actual paper[1] talks in terms of half-lives, so it would be gradually less chance of any spread over that 24-hour period.

[1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.09.20033217v...

Not being able to get stuff out of the warehouse in a timely manner would screw up the logistics big time though.

Maybe have outgoing boxes pass through some kind of ethanol misting system to sanitize them? with a catching tray to recirculate the condensed ethanol for reuse. Although the fire risks of such a solution would be somewhat worrying.

That would be a major undertaking given the size of the warehouses involved, would almost certainly interfere with the flow of packages somehow (which, unless it somehow speeds up logistics, makes it a non-starter,) and it would cost money that I guarantee you Amazon doesn't want to spend.

The way I envisioned it would be reusing off-the-shelf garden irrigation tubing and misting spray heads (polytube / LDPE, which apparently has excellent compatability with isopropyl alcohol so shouldn't melt as I understand it [1]) wrapped around key doorways that outgoing parcels travel through. Isopropyl would be sprayed from the doorways and deliver a fine mist onto packages as they pass through. E.g. as they pass through the loading dock.

Isopropyl is cheap and easily available in bulk quantities, this would only need a water hookup to mix it to 70% isopropyl (again, using commercially available garden equipment normally used to mix plant feed inline with a hose or irrigation system). Reclamation systems would be a little more work - would need some kind of reclamation dish and pump that doesn't interfere with carts etc. passing through.

Maybe it is impractical, but I still like the idea.

[1] https://www.calpaclab.com/ldpe-chemical-compatibility-chart/

It might not be a bad idea. But if it did work, I think it would work best integrated into the conveyor systems rather than the end points. Although that would make those systems more fragile, there would be a lot more time to expose packages to whatever process was necessary (and dry them) than there would be at endpoints.

>I also doubt Amazon employs many elderly or high-risk individuals as warehouse workers.

Amazon employs lots of elderly individuals in their warehouses, if over 40 counts as elderly. I've seen people at the warehouse where I work who look over 50.

>I also doubt Amazon employs many elderly or high-risk individuals as warehouse workers.

Amazon all but takes pride in refusing to make exceptions for anyone unless there is a doctor's form involved or the law requires them to.

The same people shaming Amazon and Fedex are probably the same people buying a ton of goods online for delivery and getting upset about the delays.

Knowing how many people rely on Amazon for their purchases, it seems like they're doing the right thing to keep everyone moving during this craziness.

Hopefully they are also putting in strong guards to ensure that these extra shipments truly are life-saving supplies.

My worry is that (if local store shelves are any indication) they’re just shipping paranoid people 800 rolls of toilet paper. And it’s terrible that warehouse employees will be basically strained to the breaking point to make up for selfishness and uneducated masses.

> Amazon said it would increase hourly wages by $2 in the US, £2 in the UK, and €2 in Europe. The company said it expects the pay rises expected to cost it more than $350m (£285m).

Seems like they could afford to pay them more.

They're also likely making more now than before as more people switch to online shopping.

No, Amazon is providing an absolutely critical service in this time.

Wal-Mart, Sears, Costco, target, dollar general, Sam's Club, etc could do the same thing. FedEx, ups, and USPS aren't beholden to Amazon. Likewise, how hard would it be for grub hub and the like to detail their drivers to make last mile deliveries from local stores? I'm serious. Is it 1000 work hours or 10,000,000? Hell if I get laid off I'll need work and slinging boxes out of my suv is as easy as it gets while providing a valuable service in a crisis.

“FedEx, ups, and USPS aren't beholden to Amazon”

You might have missed the memo there.

Not really. Unless it is delivering food IMO. Maybe in the US but in EU, it is not.

It doesn't take much to put together an argument that keeping people from going stir-crazy in their homes is critical.

Let's be real here, Amazon, the online shop, is not "absolutely critical". If they closed today for 15 days, a lot of people will not even notice. Unless you are a shopping, in which case, well that would be a great time for a desintox and expand your world view :-)

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22604866

As per this article: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/coronaviru...

Amazon is suspending shipment of all products except daily staples and medicines.

Most people during the depression wouldn't have complained about getting paid to work too many hours.

It's backbreaking work. Most people still complain, but work because they have to. It's not a choice for many.

okay but they're only raising wages by $2. It's disgusting. Jeff Bezos makes millions of dollars an hour.

no bootlicking responses please

I don't get the Amazon love on here either. I stopped shopping off Amazon in 2016 (I stopped shopping at Wal-Mart in 2009) and only use AWS because I have to for work.

I don't really think Amazon, or even AWS for that matter, has been a collective good for society or tech. It's just locked people into using them for the default. Easy/frictionless goods and web service infrastructure might seem like a step up, but it locks you in as well.

Why is it disgusting? They gave everyone a wage increase, and they already pay above minimums.

Also, Jeff doesn't make millions an hour, he gets paid in stock. Stock is not cash, and is not a form of liquidity. In addition, $AMZN has dropped 20% in the past month, so by your math he's been "losing" money.

Get off your high horse and get real - there's about to be a recession, and they're hiring people who are out of a job AND paying them extra while they ensure people have a way to get vital goods while staying indoors and minimizing spread.

This whole "they're evil" bs is tiring and lazy.

no, what's tiring and lazy (and yes, evil) is the idea that the peons at the bottom should be grateful for what the people at the top, who hoard 99% of the world's wealth, can get away with paying them. $15/hour is hardly living large, and a $2 bump is insulting

So you're saying Amazon has a toxic work culture? What a surprise

Or Amazon has an important role in the new Virus Economy, and is stepping up to do its part.

Once again at the expense of the worker.

And what exactly is the alternative in this very specific example?

Yes, the time-and-a-half overtime paid worker.

What's worse, stores having mass of people going in and out or a restricted set of workers they can try to keep apart?

Right now, yes those workers are at greater danger than not working (and maybe they deserve extra pay here) but I would argue that for the public good Amazon better than in person stores at the moment.

People ordering off of Amazon prevents them from having to go to brick and mortar stores where they could also spread or catch the virus. This includes the elderly who are in the highest risk groups for the disease. Most if not all Amazon warehouse workers are significantly less likely to be in high risk groups, meaning they are much more likely to have milder symptoms if they do catch it.

Sure it sucks for those who work for Amazon, ideally they should be given a choice, but people are not going to stop buying things if Amazon is way behind and orders are looking at a week or two shipment time. They'll go out in public to stores full of other people. This seems like the lesser evil of two bad options to me.

I mean, you are on where you are, Most people here are all about "entrepreneurship", adore Bezos, Kalanick, Musk, "disruption", despise unions by a large majority, believe in "the right to work" and care very little about menial worker conditions and class warfare. You'd be on another sort of forum you'd hear a very different tune. So it is to be expected. Be smart bind your time and then s*bvert.

Wow, the "Virus Economy". Is that the term emerging now? It's still sinking in with me...that this is our new reality.

It looks like they are paying for the extra hours, at least.

(Disclaimer: I work at Amazon).

We have a world class supply-chain. This is a moment when the US, and the world, 100% must have a functioning supply chain. I'm proud of the work we're doing to keep things running under unusual stress.

as you should be.

I don't work at Amazon, but I'm incredibly grateful for its existence right now and the work it is doing. I can't help but think that almost everyone in the American populace feels likewise, except some politically motivated grousing from certain groups.

Yeah I'd be the first guy to take a crap on Amazon, but you're right about this. We need a functioning supply chain or we'll have civil unrest soon and having a company taking care of that at a time when nearly everything else is closing is good. I also really appreciate the few stories of them cracking down on profiteers since resource scarcity is a big part of why people feel stressed out right now.

Claimer* , or disclosure*.

But other than that, agreed, good job; I saw earlier about not restocking non-essentials, to focus on higher demand for less discretionary items, that's bound to cause some frustration, but it's good to see - since those are presumably the less profitable lines too.

Also in excellent Corporate Social Responsibility this week is LVMH, reconfiguring perfume production lines to produce hand sanitiser for France, for free.

Beats 'Hey Italy, have a free trial of our SaaS product' [0] hands down.

[0] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22535402

I'd rather have autarky than a global supply chain, but good work none the less.

Oh really? You're selling contaminated improperly packaged medical supplies at 10x - 100x the original price.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETU-_paU0AIjwnK?format=jpg&name=...

World-class my ass.

Amazon's supply chain can be world-class and its anti-fraud can be awful; they're not mutually exclusive statements.

So you are expecting to go thru a crisis and things to run by themselves? Essential parts of supply chain and healthcare are working overtime for the sake of us all.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com