The article doesn’t support what you are saying. Do you have evidence to support these theories?
What happened is terrible and is part of a much broader natural disaster. Trying to turn this into some shallow Amazon shaming is unfortunate.
What happened is terrible and is part of a much broader natural disaster. Trying to turn this into some shallow Amazon shaming is unfortunate.
Amazon kept a warehouse open and operational, including bringing a new shift in, during a Tornado watch for the area. (this is in the article)
edit r.e. this point: other commenters have noted that while the circumstances for a tornado arising are known in advance, the tornado appears quickly enough that realistically the only option if workers are in the building at that point is to move them to a designated area of the building that's more protected. There isn't any evidence of this happening from what I have seen from the media or Amazon.
Amazon workers are penalized heavily for being late or missing shifts and the systems for calling out can be unreliable or your request can be rejected outright. Workers are also heavily penalized for Time-Off-Task and its unclear that the policy or tracking software acknowledges seeking shelter during a tornado warning as not TOT. [1][2][hundreds of anecdotal accounts across the internet]
Amazon has not released any evidence that they informed workers there wouldn't be a penalty for a no show despite having made public statements about the incident, nor have any workers who survived attested to that. (Impossible to provide a source for a lack of evidence).
and for opinion:
Even if Amazon had told workers they were free not to come in, I believe it is the responsibility of Amazon to determine the safety of their building relative to the inclement weather which they have clearly failed to do.
What else is there left unanswered about the situation, in your view?
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-wor...
[2] https://twitter.com/LCampbell_35/status/1469815411462000647
The bigger issue imho is that these employees don't seem to have been in a tornado shelter during a tornado warning?
Sadly, the preponderance of evidence -- specifically the timing of the numerous severe tornado warnings in the region, starting as early as 4 hours earlier -- and the company's unfortunate track record during other severe weather events (such as Hurricane Ida) -- does suggest there is a significant chance Amazon was too slow to warn its employees of the impending danger as this particular calamity was unfolding.
More investigation will be needed of course -- but the initial indications do appear to be quite disturbing.
I'm an Amazon worker in Kentucky, tornado hit 2 miles from my house and I physically couldn't get to work for my shift. The ERC team told me that they had no record of tornadoes in Kentucky and couldn't help me with not getting attendance time reduced for today
https://twitter.com/LCampbell_35/status/1469815411462000647
The "fuck you, prove to us otherwise" attitude of the ERC when there's obviously a major catastrophe unfolding in the region is in itself quite revealing of the companies overall sense of priorities.
I can’t answer your question exactly but I have been in a warehouse when a tornado warning was issued and the warehouse in the path of the storm. They got everyone together and put us all against the strongest wall furthest from the approaching tornado. (It lifted before reaching us)
And you know that how precisely?
Source: my phone blew up with 3+ emergency alerts starting at around 8. (here's a NWS tweet from 7:45 -- you can see what we were dealing with: https://twitter.com/NWSStLouis/status/1469483383994691586)
Things can get out of control quicker (15-20 minutes warning is usually as close as it gets), but I think it's definitely reasonable to suspect negligence in this instance. There are two possibilities, imo:
1. They had enough time to get people to shelter, and chose not to 2. The facility wasn't up to par
When there's tornadoes about, the first thing companies should tell their workers is 'Find somewhere safe to shelter, don't worry about the job or reducing damage to the company. Just make sure you're safe' (and if located somewhere known for tornadoes, also providing adequate shelter) is the bare minimum that companies should be expected to do/provide.
Six people died in a <Company> warehouse. This shouldn't have happened, regardless of <Company>.
I worked in the Midwest for a number of years. Every time there was a tornado siren, an attempt would be made to alert everyone in the building. We were to go to the shelter in the basement and/or 1st floor.
Only a minority would actually get up and move there. Worse, many would go to wall size windows to see the storm outside. There's no way security can force the majority of workers to move. All they can do is walk around and warn. Did people not go because they were worried about productivity dropping? No! They didn't go because they hear these sirens often enough (a few times every summer) and simply ignored them, because the odds of getting hurt appear low.[1]
So to me, reading people imply that they got killed because of capitalism is ludicrous. Simpler explanations exist.
Also, tornado shelters are not perfect.
Also, tornado shelters at work locations often are safer than ones at home. I know when I lived there, I always preferred to be in the office when a tornado siren hit. My home didn't have a basement, and you're not supposed to be in any room that has a window. That meant I should be either in the kitchen or the bathroom. At least the shelter at work was much bigger - you could walk around, etc.
[1] For that city, a tornado touches down there once every twenty years, and even that will be in a limited part of town. Not saying this is a good rationale, but humans will be humans.
> So to me, reading people imply that they got killed because of capitalism is ludicrous.
Take a look at people who aren't brainwashed by capitalism if you think this is ludicrous--kids in elementary school. Most of them are happy for emergency drills as they waste class time. They get to chat with their peers and go for a walk instead of sitting in class.
It is adults who have been coerced into caring about the company's/there own productivity who would not want an on-the-clock break, especially, in my experience, in this type of manual-labor-for-a-big-corp situation.
Would you really rather literally mop the floor for Amazon if you could, worry free and on the clock, chill in a room during a tornado warning?
And this isn't some generalized indictment of capitalism, which I personally believe to be highly effective at harnessing the whole of humanity towards social progress, just an observation about the realities of this type of situation.
Most children are happy to not do work in general. Most children are happy not trying to save food for the winter as well. It's up to you to decide if encouraging stocking for the winter is evil or not.