"Amazon Is a Breeding Ground for Coronavirus" | Hacker News Reader

"Amazon Is a Breeding Ground for Coronavirus"

jacobinmag.com

25 pointsdsr1216 comments

Posting from a throwaway because I know Amazon monitors this site.

As an Amazon FC employee, I follow several Facebook and Twitter accounts related to this, and I've heard many claims by employees of facilities not taking any action when the first case (or first few cases) are confirmed - including telling employees. Their policy seems to be to assume their existing contingencies, like social distancing and hand sanitizers, are sufficient even with active spread within the facility, and to continue business as usual until forced to do otherwise.

The article is accurate so far as I can tell. Amazon is unnecessarily risking their employee's health.

To counter your point, what could Amazon possibly be doing to make this situation better for their employees?

PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) is in short supply for the entire United States, as evidenced by the heartbreaking lack of equipment for medical workers across the United States.

Given the fact that you need to make personal contact with someone or something they've touched, then touching your own face. It seems to me that short of shutting down Amazon facilities, there is absolutely nothing more Amazon can really do at this time.

They should shut down Amazon facilities for at least three days after the first case is confirmed, inform employees when that occurs, and if necessary provide paid leave until the facility is cleaned and inspected.

Their incentives are currently perverse, and encourage employees to show up sick - work and take on an unknown risk of being infected in exchange for a $2 raise and double overtime, stay home without pay, or get infected and get paid leave.

I'm afraid that is not an option, this leads to an inevitable conclusion that absolutely every facet of society should be completely shut down. Amazon or any company for that matter can't guarantee a "safe" work environment from COVID-19 for at least 2 years given the widespread pandemic nature we are now living in. When you get a confirmed case of the virus in your workplace or house, you've already likely been exposed for days if not weeks.

Shutting down and "cleaning" will mean the entire distribution center has to close. Since once someone has a confirmed case, you can bet they spread it to many other people.

Furthermore, I would presume at this point, you're more likely to get COVID-19 from going to the grocery store or the door handle to your apartment building, than working at an Amazon distribution center.

At some point, we as a society have to determine a new path forward, our current path is unsustainable given that likely 70-80% of the population has or will contract COVID-19. Multi-month shutdowns aren't going to be saving any lives at this point. We have done about as much as we can to "flatten the curve" and hopefully prevent some portion of deaths from hospitals being overrun which they already are since every bit of data we've seen from this virus has been delayed.

The biggest problem is facilities not telling their employees when they have a confirmed case, because then employees might choose their own health over productivity. The second biggest problem is that most employees, even if they were told, can't afford to make that choice.

Amazon could always pay their employees a fair wage and not work them to exhaustion. It wouldn't directly impact their chances of catching the virus, but it would improve their odds of survival.

Fair wages are determined by the market, the ground work done at Amazon is not highly skilled with a surplus of labor that is capable of doing the job.

Odd, though, how recently the market determined that an increase in every Amazon's base wage to $15 was suddenly fair, without a commensurate increase in labor skill or decrease in supply having taken place. And how the market also determined RSUs were no longer fair once the stock price rose high enough.

It's almost as if these things aren't really determined by the impartial, invisible hand of the market at all.

"Since I’ve been off the job, I’ve been taking money out of my 401k just to get by. I shouldn’t have to do that."

For salaried folks, this should tell you what kind of employer Amazon is. She is right: nobody should have to draw from their 401(k) in their mid-thirties.

Just a minor quibble, but viruses don't breed.

Jacobin is nothing more than Fox News for the Left with a prettier skin. Really wish it were excluded here as Fox would be for the same reasons. Super politicized opinion pieces.

No doubt, but is CNN/MSNBC/<insert your favorite mainstream media outlet here> actually any less politicized?

Please point out a non-ideological news resource. At least Jacobin is honest about their political leaning. Any political lean is going to be inevitable--you just don't notice it in the New York Times or Wapo because center left ideology is like air in the US.

The Fox comparison is disingenuous. Fox isn't bad because they're right wing, they're bad because they're hysterical and dishonest.

I beg to disagree, Jef: the actual manager of the actual warehouse is having actual information to convey, and I think it's right. This does not match my experience of Fox News, where the talking heads are the ones giving information/data/whatever you want to call what they say.

The article is an interview with a worker at a warehouse. I found it quite informative.

Also, Jacobin is quite upfront about its politics and is not making any pretentions toward "news".

This is not a valid refutation of the content of the article.

You are arguing from the bottom levels of this pyramid: https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/how-to-disagree-well-7-of-t...

One of the massive blind spots of this forum, is that we can productively discuss only the techie aspects of a situation without including politics.

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