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Comment by tumetab1 | Hacker News Reader

This is weird...

> Amazon “evidently failed to comply with obligations to protect the health of employees,” judges said in their Tuesday ruling.

That results in

> a court order banned the sale of non-essential goods, concluding the retailer isn’t doing enough to protect staff from the Covid-19 pandemic.

I think there's something missing from one reason (not good enough health practices according to the judge) to lead to ban non-essential goods sales.

Can some fill in what's missing (with references) please?

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According to this reuters[1] article the distancing rules weren't enforced. Limiting Amazon to the sale of essential goods seems to be intended to reduce the workforce and ensure that distancing rules could be observed consistently. I am not french however at least in Germany the distancing rules are handed down from the government and not something Amazon could simply cast beside in favor of its own measures.

[1]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-amazon...

Less sales leads to less activity and deliveries

Realistically, it's they want to have their cake and eat it too.

If Amazon is not taking precautions and putting the population at risk, they should be shut down.

Amazon is already putting massive delays on non-essential goods (delivery times have moved from 2 days to up to 1 month) in order to prioritize moving essential goods. Not to mention, they've said they're hiring due to the massive influx of orders for essential goods.

So logically speaking, if a large portion of their current activity is already essential goods, what is this besides a way to look like they're standing up to the big bad foreign tech company while getting to keep their deliveries flowing in (all without actually protecting anyone)

> So logically speaking, if a large portion of their current activity is already essential goods

I think the point is many suspect that is not the case.

https://thegrio.com/2020/04/01/amazon-worker-strike-covid-19...

This is the first week since demand spiked due to COVID that 3rd party sellers are even allowed to sell non-essential goods on Amazon, and they make up over 50% of sales:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-seeks-to-hire-another-75...

It’s true Amazon is still selling non-essential goods, and I understand why the man is frustrated, but it’s very clear even with just “essential goods” being sold, Amazon will still require a large part of their current machinery.

When you’re talking about an organization as large as Amazon Fulfillment, and a virus as infectious as COVID, these half-measures definitely come across as more for optics than actually stopping the spread.

“Books? For kids, yes. But dildos? No!”

This guy has really weird standards for what qualifies as essential.

No, if Amazon isn't taking sufficient precautions, they should be forced to take sufficient precautions to protect their workers. Shutting them down harms other people in a time of crisis. The court is correctly looking for ways to minimize total harm.

Sure? You're missing the forest for the trees, my point is meaningful changes to minimize total harm should be made. COVID is too serious for stuff like "you can still sell tons of stuff and involve thousands of people, but you know, only dog toys and chocolate chip cookies". Even Amazon is calling the categories allowed broad and general...

Not a single source I've read on this has a hard actionable order on Amazon that actually improves the safety of those who will still be involved in their operations.

The closest they got to that is for them to self evaluate... which they already did and came to conclusions which are actively putting people at risk

Sure, and it's a shame Amazon let things get this far. Especially since Amazon is enormously secretive about how how it runs things, there's no reason to think anybody but Amazon can propose truly effective changes. But that doesn't mean a court should stand by and do nothing with workers at risk.

> delivery times have moved from 2 days to up to 1 month

At least here in the UK those items showing delivery estimates a month away still show up in a day or two.

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