Deadly Collapse at Amazon Warehouse Puts Spotlight on Phone Ban | Hacker News Reader

Deadly Collapse at Amazon Warehouse Puts Spotlight on Phone Ban

bloomberg.com

42 pointshariswill8 comments

A lifting a phone ban won't change the structures and incentives at play. This is an attempt to again shift responsibility to individuals.

Let's imagine how the scenario plays out if workers have access to weather alerts. Each worker has a choice to make: either bring it up to their sup, ignore it, or walk out. Maybe y'all have more experience working at amazon warehouses than me, but I don't believe for a second that warehouse management is going to let people off the job. Management's incentives simply don't align with that possibility. If they did, this wouldn't be an issue. The other options have even worse consequences for workers.

No but warehouse management would probably leave themselves if they knew their lives could be in danger…workers would follow

Assuming they are in the same building, which may not be the case idk

That's not how it would play out. In a large warehouse with dozens or hundreds of employees, the place would be leveled before everyone has caught up on the fact that something is going on.

There's a good reason why so much emphasis is put on clear procedures, and regular drills when it comes to mitigating more common disasters such as fire.

It's the responsibility of the employer to provide a safe workplace. Of course, nobody can ward of natural disasters, but it's totally valid to hold employers accountable for providing adequate affordances to ensure a modicum of worker safety.

Public Weather Forecasting Services can issue tornado warnings. States implement a multi-tiered system including sirens, media broadcasts and cellphone alerts to inform the general public. If you, as a worker, don't have access to any of those, it's definitely the responsibility of your employer to warn you when disaster is about to hit home.

This might be difficult for the average HN’er to understand, but phone bans are incredibly common at blue collar jobs. Being seen with one when you should be moving boxes, flipping burgers, working the register, etc is usually grounds for reprimand. It’s frankly ridiculous that a tornado prone area does not have legislation mandating some sort of warning siren in these large facilities though

It’s hard to get people riled up about every place that has these phone bans. Amazon is an easier target. The optimistic goal is to get this reversed at one place then have it reverberate.

News like this is why I always try to find an alternate shop when ordering online (failed only twice in last five years).

Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of a mega store where everything is available at great prices. But at this point the company is run by drones without any human emotions.

If I support them now, maybe my kids will have to work there because by then no other businesses are remaining.

If you have ever worked in an industrial environment, phone bans are a safety issue more than a productivity issue, and are pretty much standard behavior. This article is just another hit job on Amazon. But I can tell you first hand, that Walmart, UPS, Every member of the U.S. steel industry association ban cellphones in production environments.

The warehouse should have a disaster alarm, and they should have a plan in place for what to do in situations like that, but the reality is even with such a system, tornadoes rarely give enough to react at scale.

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