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Comment by romwell | Hacker News Reader

>Were there no warnings for the severe weather storm that would have prevented people coming in to work or allowed them to leave work early?

There were warnings. Warnings that skipping work would get one fired[1]. And since the warehouse was not closed that day, the warning was: clock in on time, or else, weather be damned.

>When I was working in the office...

Well there's a difference between how office employees are treated, and how warehouse employees are treated.

>Why doesn’t Amazon....

Because they can. And that, because their workforce isn't unionized and doesn't have the collective bargaining power to get what Amazon should give them.

[1]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/24/technology/amazon-employe...

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Your article is over a month old...

Do you think Amazon has changed its labor practices in the last month? The OP's point is that warehouse employees don't have the option to not show up.

With tornados you don't have a long heads up. You normally know there's a bad storm coming and that's it. It's not until the sirens go off that everyone stops what they're doing. Everybody in that town most likely went to work that day.

Is it commonplace in such areas for workplaces to have plans for such an event? Tornado shelters?

Shelters no, at least not in my experience (lived in Illinois). But knowing of a more safe place in the building. For example, my high school had us go into the inner hallways and sit down against the walls.

Presumably this wouldn’t go any better than it did for the Amazon employees when facing a tornado of the strength being talked about in the original post?

And because we keep buying from Amazon no matter what.

The solution is regulations and unions. If it's not Amazon it will be something else. Many people do not have time or money to look for alternatives. I never buy on Amazon but directly from the providers, but that takes time that I have but many people does not.

> If it's not Amazon it will be something else.

Companies do vary in how they treat their workers. Some are unionized.

“Vote with your wallet” principles are relevant when it comes to toxic social behavior only if you’re actually paying activists/lobbyists.

Otherwise pushing for the rules to be properly enforced and/or to change for the better should be where efforts go.

Speak for yourself. I haven't done business with them in almost a decade. The last several years, since their prices went up, I've been saving money doing so.

Well, we is a figure of speech in this case, I haven't bought anything there. I'm very anti-anti unions.

Given Amazon's track record with warehouses, I expect surviving staff will be provided with the opportunity to take an unpaid day off to grieve.

All of that was my point.

Sure, I just felt like answering the rhetorical questions explicitly for anyone who's skimming for the sake of clarity.

Gotcha!

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