The coronavirus crisis may be uncharted waters in many ways , but there ’s a clock time - honour tradition for aggrieved workers whose health and safety machine are treat as an afterthought : go on strike .
Your goals as a prole ( earning a living , not getting sick or dying on the line of work ) and the goals of your party ( profit ) are basically mismatched . During less frightening times , this chasm can often be overlooked ! But for those of you working for Amazon , it ’s already painfully clear to many of your colleagues — inNewYork , inChicago , and soonDetroit — that your employer ’s manipulation of the coronavirus within its straggle warehousing meshwork is unacceptable .
How else do you explicate Amazon ’s alleged lack of transparency around exposures ? Associates and managers alike are gathering on Reddit totrack acknowledge and bruit caseswithin their facilities — because , workers say , corporate is n’t pronto partake in this information . fall worker in Chicago evenallegethat management countenance multiple shifts to cycle through their building before they were informed of a confirmed covid-19 case at the facility and that they abide by : “ cleaner using non - approved cleansing products , the same rags over and over , and only wiping down canonical surfaces at the storage warehouse . ” A pitch facility associate toldGizmodothat societal distancing was not being observed at his storage warehouse ; as a part - time workforce , the overwhelming bulk of manner of speaking station labourer do not pick up health insurance .
A striker outside warehouse JFK8 in Staten Island, NYPhoto: Getty
To the best of our noesis , no repositing associates have receivedhazard pay , despite the fact that we ’re facing an unprecedented epidemic that has already overwhelmed hospital system in several major cities .
Amazon ’s logistics imperium was view as an of the essence business concern , even as whole swath of the economy have shinny to a check . Striking during a pandemic — your honcho might tell apart you — is selfish when other essential proletarian ca n’t do the same . Do n’t purchase it . Unfortunate as it is to conceive about , those in health care or law enforcement made an informed conclusion to pursue careers that put them in harm ’s means ( and it has n’t stop themfromstrikingorthreatening to strikeduring calmer times , for what it ’s deserving ) .
Sure , there are plenty of reports of warehouse employment , specially at this company , being backbreaking . But you probably started at Amazon with the reasonable expectation that it would not lead to contracting an untreatable sickness . If your bosses are n’t holding up their end of that buy , then they ’ve already cast the first Harlan F. Stone , and there ’s little at your electric pig but withholding your labor .
Many business are also in frightening financial straits . Workers across the area are being place off , furlough , or have their salary reduced . Fortunately , you shape for a trillion - dollar company , at the pleasure of the richest serviceman on Earth . Practically anything you could take for — specially minimal protection like hazard pay , facility closures to disinfect , and healthcare — are not only possible , they ’re likely barely more than a rounding error on Jeff Bezos ’s equaliser rag .
Workersprotestedoutside a delivery station in Queens when they heard of exposure in the building , and coincidentally , that rescue station wasclosed downfor deep cleaning . Chicago strikers wonpaid metre offfor part - time prole . The tap in Staten Islandreportedlynetted a pay climb from $ 17.50 to $ 23 per time of day . This all come in addition to a $ 2 pay raise across all storage warehouse , and relaxed attending policies for March .
These are minimum concessions . reckon about what would make you sense secure and valued , and fight for it . Now .
Despite transition to practical job interviews for high - level candidatesover a calendar month ago , Amazon is still reportedly pack room — withno esteem for social distancing measures — trying to employ more reposition associate . Amazon is not unique in treating some worker like tycoon and others like cannon fodder . Fortunately , right now , those of you on the front course have over-the-top leverage .
Make no mistake , this applies as much outside Amazon ’s warehouses as in . Managers , delivery machine driver , Whole Foods workers , the few genuine humans at Go fund , Amazon Air pilots , and technical school workers — your voices are stronger together , and right now I ’d suppose most of you want the same things : financial and medical security department in uncertain times .
Amazon ’s reputation is evermore marry tounsafeworkplaces , tounion – rupture , toextractingas much productiveness from actor as physically possible while payingnext to nothingin taxes on its lucre . increase workplace protections and remuneration would be the very tip of what we could call — if not a offset to American class awareness — a much needed a grocery store discipline . The wealthiest person to ever live is actively putting you , your family , and your residential district in harm ’s way . If now is n’t the time to utter up , when is ?
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