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Comment by SkyMarshal | Hacker News Reader

Theoretically a company like Amazon should be able to provide masks, goggles and health monitoring to its workers to minimize the possibility of a COVID19 outbreak among them. It’s in Amazon’s business interests to do so (or risk business disruption due to outbreak among their workforce).

It’s also better for society that the congregations of people shift from many geographically scattered and difficult-to-monitor locations to a few single operations like Amazon warehouses that can be very closely monitored and screened for COVID19. Amazon’s warehouses can be more cheaply monitored and supplied with PPE than all of society can.

This should probably be part of SOP for responding to outbreaks like this.

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Amazon is trying to source masks for its employees, but is having trouble sourcing them[1].

[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/22/21189881/apple-donating-m...

I'm surprised they can't get them made on whatever lines make AmazonBasics products. (Do they not yet sell AmazonBasics HEPA filters?)

Pretty sure those are made in China. That would put a wrench in those plans.

They could theoretically.

They could also theoretically provide adequate bathroom breaks for their workers.

Previous history hints at what we will see.

Amazon jobs require a strong bladder and God bladder management. They retain people with strong bladders and good bladder management. If they couldn't fill the roles with strong bladder employees, they'd have to relax that requirement.

Now they're going to have strong bladder management + strong touch your face management. :)

On a more serious note, I wonder if there are scenarios where asymptomatic carriers can contaminate packages sent to many geographically diverse locations?

Hospitals can't even get enough masks and other PPE, I'm not so sure that Amazon would be able to source a reliable supply even if they wanted to.

And imagine the outcry about those evil capitalists if Amazon did manage to source PPE while hospitals cannot.

> Theoretically a company like Amazon should be able to provide masks, goggles and health monitoring to its workers

Theoretically yeah, but practically Amazon is driven by people with short-term profits in mind, so you don't see this happening. In the ideal world, capitalists realizes that if their customers / workforce goes out of jobs because of sickness, they won't earn as much. But seems that's too much future thinking, so business are trying to extract as much value they can before they'll be forced to shut down.

While Amazon clearly does not have their workers best interest in mind, this is not a short-term profit driven company. On the contrary, Amazon is focused on growing and solidifying its long-term position at the expense of short-term profits.

The company doesn't do anything by itself. It's all driven by people, and people who work in a company changes. Effectively any company participating in the for-profit culture of capitalism favors short-term shareholder benefits over long-term societal ones, because that's simply how the system works and prefers.

Someone took ECON 102. Got a C.

Hint: Not all, or even most, companies "participating for-profit culture of capitalism" are publicly traded and answerable to shareholders.

Amazon is actually defined by long-term thinking, which was heavily criticized for over a decade while their stock remained flat. It's hard to imagine now, but people didn't really believe in the company until about 2009.

Jeff Bezos' letter to shareholders, 1997:

It's All About the Long Term

Because of our emphasis on the long term, we may make decisions and weigh tradeoffs differently than some companies... We will continue to make investment decisions in light of long-term market leadership considerations rather than short-term profitability considerations or short-term Wall Street reactions.

https://blog.aboutamazon.com/company-news/amazons-original-1...

This seems pretty standard when you ask executives at any company. Of course no executive is gonna go straight out and say they don't care about the long-term, only about short-term profitability.

> Hey Joe, does your company emphasis on the long term or short-term profitability?

> Joe: What a good question! We at ACME AB of course favor long-term sustainability rather than short-term profitability

> How about letting your warehouse workers go to the bathroom whenever they want?

> Joe: well, our long-term plan depends on short-term profitability so of course people can't go to the bathroom whenever they want, they should have a allocated slot for that.

Point being: look at the actions of a company rather than the words of the owners/workers, and you'll get a much more real picture.

How about you start by taking a look at Amazon's 25 year history of long term growth at the expense of negative short term profit?

You mean like eschewing short term pandering to the market and massively reinvesting in the company? Like they've done for years. So, yes, Amazon thinks long term.

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