Amazon Told Workers Paid Sick Leave Law Doesn't Cover Warehouses (theguardian.com) 91
Amazon workers in southern California's industrial heartland say the company's policies are forcing sick employees to work and that warehouses are refusing to comply with a state paid sick leave law meant to prevent Covid-19 outbreaks. From a report: In the Inland Empire region outside Los Angeles, Amazon workers told the Guardian they fear losing their jobs if they are ill and stay home. At least four Amazon warehouses in the region have recorded Covid-19 cases. On 1 May, Amazon ended a policy allowing unlimited unpaid time off, a measure adopted at the start of the coronavirus crisis that allowed workers to take time off for any reason. They would forgo wages, but if they were concerned about their safety or had new childcare responsibilities due to lockdowns, they could stay home without losing their jobs. Without the policy, workers say they could now be fired if they miss shifts. They worry the reversal will result in sick and vulnerable people showing up for shifts because they can't risk termination. The health concerns are particularly serious in the Inland Empire, which has some of the worst air quality in the US and disproportionately high rates of asthma and other respiratory illnesses. Employees also shared emails showing that Amazon has dismissed some paid sick leave requests by claiming a California law intended to provide supplemental sick leave during the pandemic does not apply to the warehouses.
Amazon = China (Score:5, Insightful)
I stopped using Amazon years ago when I saw how they treated their warehouse workers. I do not support slave labor.
Re:Amazon = China (Score:5, Informative)
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But I'm not aware of an instance in which they made a difference.
The proportion of the customers just isn't high enough to make a difference.
Blogging pseudoscience under the pseudonym "Food Babe" on the other hand, has been impactful.
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But I'm not aware of an instance in which they made a difference.
Here's one: https://www.history.com/topics... [history.com]
In protest, the colonists boycotted tea sold by British East India Company and smuggled in Dutch tea, leaving British East India Company with millions of pounds of surplus tea and facing bankruptcy.
Re: Amazon = China (Score:2)
We dumped it in the harbor. Thats not exactly a simple boycott. We poured gas on that fire and sabotaged the shipments at one point. You would need to blow up 1 or 2 Amazon warehouses to trigger the same movement. After that, maybe.
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But I'm not aware of an instance in which they made a difference.
A sugar boycott helped end the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1815, as part of the Treaty of Vienna.
A boycott of products made with slave labor led to the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.
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When I find something on Amazon that I want I usually go search for it on eBay as well. Often the exact same seller is on eBay as well offering it for a bit less money.
Unfortunately eBay usually means PayPal but at least I save a few bucks.
Amazon = Rockefeller = psycho capitalism. (Score:1)
Same behavior. All that's missing is Al Capone.
But yeah, you are right too.
Since the work situation in China right now is almost exactly like in the US during Rockefeller's reign. Yes, I'm saying that China is a top notch psychopath capitalist. ^^
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Simple Solution (Score:3)
If Amazon really isn't giving the warehouse employees paid sick time, I can help them out:
I just won't order from Amazon until they do.
See how that works; I'm not willing to risk illness from an Amazon order, so I don't order. If enough people follow my example, Amazon won't need all those workers to fill orders, and the sick ones can swap shifts with those who aren't.
Granted it's not perfect, (the sick guy still doesn't get paid), but it at least provides an incentive for Amazon to treat their employees better.
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Unfortunately voting with your wallet only really works in local stores; national and international companies couldn't possibly care less if a handful of people try to make an example because their customer base is so large that there will always be a sufficient number of people who just absolutely NEEDS to buy stuff NOW! They can't possibly survive without that pewter figurine of Mickey Mouse or whatever weird thing they just happened to stumble across.
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That's where the Facebook viral ad campaign comes in. It's amazing how quickly bad news travels on the Internet.
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And after seeing people flocking to IKEA - IKEA, for crying out loud! - the moment it reopened because it had been so hard to go without I just don't trust people to not be desperate to be consumers again.
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You may get a lot of complaining. However changing people spending habits is much harder.
Boycotting a service is hard, it requires sacrifice on your part. So for many when they find that Dog Bones are $3.00 less from Amazon they will buy it.
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Nobody cares if they care.
When I choose Newegg instead of Amazon, Newegg now has that money. Not Amazon. Nobody has to care about anything for voting with my wallet to be 100% effective. When you choose a supplier for whatever reason, you are giving a reward of actual value to those that are doing things the way you want; they don't need to know that is why you made the purchase for this to have an effect, because they're already the people doing things the way you want to encourage.
All these individual inp
Re:Simple Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Then just an ad campaign can work - 2 day delivery? It can survive on surfaces for up to 3 days. And before it was packed, it was handled by potentially sick people. So now your Amazon package may be an infection vector.
Did you sanitize your Amazon package when you got it, or did you rip into it the instant it arrived?
Heck even a "did an infected person handle your package?" could scare a good chunk of the population. Followed by "Amazon doesn't pay sick time, so workers either starve, or work while sick, handling your order while infectious".
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Not just need it now (Score:1)
Me? I
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Amazon Web Services power a significant potion of the internet.
Even many governments rely on it.
You can choose not to purchase products through their store, but the company has metastasized to the point where keeping your dollars out of their pockets is near impossible.
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Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Funny)
I was worried about getting CV from amazon deliveries, so I got smart and ordered some UV lights which I can then use to disinfect things I get from amazon. the lights were on Prime, so it will be here in 2 da-
uhm. well..
look, if we build a giant wooden badger ...
Re:Simple Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
Before all this kicked off I was working on a UV box that could be used for sterilization. It was actually to restore yellowed plastics but it will work for both. Basically a transparent plastic box with reflective foil lining and some 60W UV lights taped to the lid. If I was using it for sterilization I might look at having some UV LED strips on the bottom too.
Someone needs to invent a delivery box with UV sterilization built in. Basically a large box with locking lid that you bolt to the ground. Delivery person puts the package in and maybe scans a barcode to prove they were there. Box locks so package can't be stolen and for safety, then the UV sterilization kicks in.
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Dude. UV sterilization lights for small spaces are like 6-8 watts. A 60w is almost certainly used for a large clean room application and would be overkill (and possibly quite damaging) for detox box.
I have ordered self contained 8 watt UV fluorescent lights and mounted them to the top of zip-up foil lined reusable grocery bags. Works great, cost around $10-12, and takes 5 minutes to assemble.
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As I said the original design was for restoring yellowed plastics in a process known as "retrobrite". You add some peroxide and water to a bath and then use sunlight, but the process can be accelerated and made more reliable and consistent by using high power UV lights. Even so it still takes hours.
Re:Simple Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Saying it on here and then not buying anything won't make a difference. If you stop buying from there, they don't know why you stopped. You have to tell them and get a lot of other people to do the same two things: tell Amazon that they will stop their purchases from them until offer paid sick leave to all of their employees along making it a condition to any companies that they work with; and then follow through with it.
But whom are you going to buy from instead of Amazon? Do you think Walmart or any of their competitors are any better? Even the big bricks and mortar chains will be as bad. Look at what is happening at the meat packing plants where the only thing the governments are doing is removing the liability of the companies if the employees get sick when they are being made to go back to work. (The meat packing plants are opening back up in Alberta, Canada too despite large outbreaks of COVID-19 amongst the workers. The big difference is that the government isn't forcing them back to work, but it isn't forcing the employer to protect them either.)
The only way to really change things is to change the regulations under which the corporations work. Neither of the two parties in the US seem to actually give a toss about the people. The President is actively killing the citizens. His party is going along with it and the Democrats aren't really opposing. They're more concerned about where the bailout money is going.
Your country was founded to get away from exactly the type of person you know have leading it. Trump has been keeping supplies from states with Democratic governors and sending extra supplies to states with Republican governors, even if they don't need them. Why aren't you doing something to stop him?
(Yes, I know that I'm going to get labelled as flame bait or troll for this but I can't understand how nobody is doing anything. Trump is going to have killed 100k's by the time the elections come around and the Democrats aren't even trying to oppose him.)
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If you stop buying from there, they don't know why you stopped.
What you do, then, is start a campaign to get people to cancel their Amazon accounts, 'prime' or not. When you cancel they want to know why you're cancelling. Then you make it abundantly clear in your reason for cancelling that you strongly disapprove of how they treat their warehouse workers, especially in the face of the current crisis, and therefore are taking your business elsewhere. A few million iterations of that and they'll start to panic.
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But whom are you going to buy from instead of Amazon? Do you think Walmart or any of their competitors are any better?
The problem with the left is they have bought too far into the idea that hypocrisy is inherently bad. There is nothing wrong with boycotting just Amazon until they change while still using other services that aren't perfect. If you force Amazon to change there is a good chance that the competitors will follow or you can just shift to boycotting them. Sure you have to be subjected to a whole heap of what-aboutisms as people try to undermine your protest but that is just modern politics. Most likely though i
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Digital Millennium Antitrust Act:
Split up companies with a significant amount of intellectual property, everything gets open sourced and placed in the public domain (and I don't much like the F/OSS community). Child companies of such an antitrust split may of course expand the code internally with proprietary bits, but the snapshot of the "today" code goes public.
Would be really useful for when someone wakes up to breaking Disney as well.
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You want to try and let them know what they're doing wrong and how to fix it so you'd be happy, don't leave them guessing at what a no show is about, you could be dead for all they know, just F-N TELL THEM!
Send an actual physical letter, not an email or net petition, after all, you want them to notice.
Net stuff probably won't even be seen, nor cared about.
Emails are easy to ignore
Warehouses are meaningless (Score:1)
According to a buddy who manages a warehouse, Amazon makes all their money with their "cloud" services, and the whole shopping/warehouse business is merely a side gig almost not worth the effort.
So you would have to stop using any "cloud" services, like Netflix or Steam etc, somehow without harming those companoes themselves, or somehow getting it through to them that it's because they are using Amazon.
Yeah, this is precisely what democratic governments were invented for.
So the will of the people can force
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probably the shopping/warehouse things gets them enough employees to get access to tax breaks, or simply enough weight to throw around when dealing with the government: "if you tax us, our business becomes inviable and we'll have to fire 10,000 people"
Time for an union let's see what happens when (Score:4, Insightful)
Time for an union let's see what happens when all whorehouse people do an walkout at the same time.
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Time for an union let's see what happens when all whorehouse people do an walkout at the same time.
But, but, but... Unions are B-A-D!
Pretty much a lot of the Slashdot neckbreads.
I mean I'll grant them, I'll trust a Union about as far as I can throw them, but I think we've ran out the "good faith" the corporate overlords have enjoyed thus far. I think it's time we realized, none of these rich fucks really care about anyone outside themselves.
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No, they haven't told them to work while sick. What they've said is "work or starve". If you're fine with that, and don't expect sick people to decide it's better to work, well, that's your choice.
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No, they haven't told them to work while sick. What they've said is "work or starve". If you're fine with that, and don't expect sick people to decide it's better to work, well, that's your choice.
Hate to break it to you but that is pretty much the policy of every company big and small everywhere in the US. Businesses are not charities. It has always been a problem and will continue to be a problem.
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Well, I've worked at several places where that wasn't true, so it sure isn't a universal. I've never continued to work at a place where it was true.
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Yes but we all know the US is actually a third world country, it meets several criteria:
- No labor protection laws, which allows employers to pull bullshit like this
- No minimum wage laws
- No paid leaves required by federal law, like maternity leave or VACATION!
- No access to basic human rights, like guara
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That's actually not even the core of the issue.
Ignoring the unlimited time off policy, the Amazon workers are alleging that they are working in a warehouse handling food, and Amazon is refusing to provide the mandatory 2 weeks time off as required in the Executive Order.
Re:Time for an union let's see what happens when (Score:4, Insightful)
Unions are bad, because unions are a workaround for failed government oversight. Every time a union does something that benefits the employees, with the sole exception being negotiating salary tiers, almost invariably it is something that the government should have done, but failed to do.
Eventually, unions seem to eventually devolve until they become either A. so cushy with the corporate overlords that they are ineffectual or B. so completely distanced from reality that everybody loses their jobs in favor of a non-union plant. And the reason that the latter occurs is because, once again, the government failed in its oversight responsibilities, and thus the things that the union is demanding are avoidable by simply firing everybody and starting over with non-union labor.
And along the way, many unions create bulls**t rules about who can do what, not based on safety, but based on protectionism and paranoia, resulting in making everybody's lives miserable, creating an us-versus-us mentality.
So IMO, the best choice is always strong government oversight without a revolving door between regulators and industry. In the absence of a properly functioning government, though, unions, as broken as they might be, are sometimes the only other viable option.
Either way, if these stories are true, I hope the California AG investigates, prosecutes, and seizes all of Amazon's California warehouses under civil forfeiture laws and auctions the contents off to Wal-Mart, Target, et al. It's the right way to handle a company that has so flagrantly and repeatedly ignored laws intended to protect public health and safety. Just saying.
Re:Time for an union let's see what happens when (Score:4, Informative)
As long as corporations can bribe government which is the situation here in the US; government oversight is worthless. Our government has been steadily dismantling worker protections and unions for many years... all at the behest of our real rulers, the corporations.
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And the unspoken error in all this is the assumption politicians are innocent naifs corrupted by evil big business, when a look in history and around much of the world shows a job in government, so you can take bribes, is considered not just a, but the best path to a good lifestyle.
Around 1990 there were massive college protests in India against a set-aside of a percent of government jobs for the lower castes. This puzzled me -- in America, students would protest for it, not against. I asked an Indian col
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I'm going just to throw this out, unsupported: all governments are not the same.
I know, I know, making broad statements like that without ba
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Except now we have a real paradox, because the President doesn't like Jeff Bezos because WaPo never writes anything nice about him. Thus, Amazon must die.
At the same time, unions are anti-Republican because they go against profits, so...
But then
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At this point, the union itself doesn't want to disband (and lose their we
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If you look closely at the more odd and restrictive union rules, most of them turn out to exist due to a past attempt by management to play a technicality.
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Some of them, sure. But a lot of what I've seen are "That's my job and you're not allowed to do it, because we want to make sure that management won't ever notice that they can do the work with half as many people" sorts of situations, which mostly ends up resulting in a mire of bureaucracy in which nobody can get anything done.
Re:Time for an union let's see what happens when (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, that's a classic example of what I'm talking about.
Union and Employer sign new contract. Among other items, workers who do A will be paid not less than X. Workers who do B will be paid not less than Y where Y is substantially less than X.
Weeks later, new guy hired to do B, gets brief introduction, goes to work, doesn't seem to have a lot of B to do.
Next week, person who does A is laid off with "We just don't need that much A done right now. Worker is a bit confused since there always seems to be more A that needs to be done than there are workers to do it.
Next day, manager tells the new guy that there's not as much B to be done, so they might have to lay him off.....UNLESS!! he'd like to fill in doing A for a while...
VIOLA, someone who is doing A but being paid Y which is substantially less than management agreed to pay people doing A. Union boss complains, management says (with toes crossed) he's still here to do B, he's just filling in temporarily. Fill in and temporary turn out to be full time and until the heat death of the universe respectively.
SURPRISE! Next negotiation, union gets really picky about people only doing what their job description says.
The frog will quit hopping out of the pot at every small provocation when management quits trying to boil the frog.
The beatings will continue until morale improves (Score:2)
The frog will quit hopping out of the pot at every small provocation when management quits trying to boil the frog.
Well said sir, well said.
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Simple child, those laws are for people like you, not your corporate masters. Ever heard of a Ford/Chrysler dealership being seized because a drug-dealer bought a car?
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Agree, Amazon is a most perfect current day example of when to unionize. So is Walmart and several other places.
However, I still remain a right to work principal person. We cannot create any laws that subvert or prop up Unions. They need to form when needed and die out when not needed. And government needs to keep it filthy ass fucking mitts off unless there is some actual law breakage going on like blocking entrances and exits, assaults, or thefts. But if they want all massively walk out and picket th
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An odd comment in this case since apparently those warehouses are breaking the law. The problem is, it takes a while for a union to form, even more when union busting is in play (like when the guy going around discussing organizing a union "just happens" to get fired).
It's funny how exclusive deals for nearly anything but labor are perfectly legal in "right to work" states.
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Don't get me wrong. Amazon breaking the law should definitely be dealt with legally, but that will not fix all of the other things Amazon gets by with legally.
And now long it takes to form a union is irrelevant. Neither the business, employee, or consumer should have any unfair advantages provided for by the law over the other.
A level playing field is what should be legally & socially pursued.
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But since worker protection in the U.S. is pretty lax, there is always a need for the union. It has to do the duties that law enforcement has derilected. You don't expect the HR department to be disbanded after each relevant workplace activity, do you?
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No no no... there is not always a need for the union. Sometimes there is, but not always. That is corruption and just as counter productive as not having one, just in the opposite direction.
How much more money could employees make if they were not forced to pay those dues? Ever think about that? Of course you did, but you will falsely claim that without the union they would be making even less.
There are tons of well paid non-union jobs out there.
HR is a different beast altogether and is an irrelevant st
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Wow, putting words in my mouth, then calling me a liar for "saying" them. All with zero evidence or reasoning.
Re: Time for an union let's see what happens when (Score:2)
This is standard for Mr Astray.
Easy way to know Unions are good (Score:2)
Businesses spend money to make money. So it stands to reason the higher wages Unions could get you is cheaper than the cost of buying anti-Union laws and having lawyers and Union busters on staff.
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Time for an union let's see what happens when all whorehouse people do an walkout at the same time.
In Europe it got some of them sick leave and paid vacation, and the right to reject a potential customer.
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Please no, my wife thinks I'm infected and stays away. I'm a lonely boy.
Seems like this is pretty easy to fix (Score:2)
I doubt the description is accurate. If an employee needs an extended amount of unpaid time off because they're sick, all they should need is a note from their doctor. If they just don't want to come to work, then that's called unexcused absence, and is grounds for termination in right-to-work states. If an employee doesn't want to come to work for safety reasons, they don't need a union to be able to contact OSHA.
Strangely, you are wrong (Score:4, Informative)
That's not what the EO says. From the official FAQ on the EO:
In the absence of any information that a worker is not requesting COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave for a valid purpose, can a hiring entity require certification from a health care provider before allowing a worker to take the leave?
No. A hiring entity may not deny a worker COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave based solely on a lack of certification from a healthcare provider. Under the Executive Order, a food sector worker is entitled to take COVID-19 Supplemental Paid Sick Leave immediately upon the worker’s oral or written request. The Executive Order does not condition leave on medical certification.
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The EO only applies to workers in the food industry. The Amazon workers are trying to include themselves in that category on the basis that a tiny proportion of the parcels that pass through their distribution center contain pre-packaged food, but they are not handling food in the manner the law is intended to protect.
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Wrong also. Is there a single food item stored there, pre-packaged or not? Then they qualify.
Eligible workers thus include grocery workers, restaurant or fast food workers, workers at warehouses where food is stored, and workers who pick-up or deliver any food items.
Would anyone else like to demonstrate their illiteracy?
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b) Work for a business that runs a food facility, which includes grocery stores, fast-food restaurants, and distribution centers
http://amazon.com/food [amazon.com]
http://anazon.com/pantry [anazon.com]
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That's from "FAQs on Executive Order Concerning Supplemental Paid Sick Leave for Food Sector Workers at Companies with 500 or More Employees" (https://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ-for-PSL.html) ? (emphasis added)
I think you're stretching the intent of the law a bit, here, based on poor phrasing on the part of the politicians where they said "workers at warehouses where food is stored". What percentage of packages shipped by amazon have food in them? If a company's business is based 5% on some industry, does tha
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http://amazon.com/groceries [amazon.com]
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Find some data that shows that grocery sales are a significant portion of amazon's revenue, and then I'll concede your point. But you won't be able to do that.
The solution is not to bitch and moan about whether amazon is a "food service sector" company. The solution is to expand the order to include warehouses of other types as well.
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Congratulations, you just achieved the No True Food Sector argument.
I have to go troll other people now, because if I keep this up with you any longer, people will start to think we're in cahoots. Plus, you're a moron.
It's been fun.
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Yeah, sure. Except that you're the one that's confused about things and moving the goalposts.
Better luck next time.
"It's a right to work state" (Score:3)
Meanwhile the labor board where I'm at only exists on paper. It's not funded, so good luck calling it.
Re:"It's a right to work state" (Score:5, Informative)
It's almost like "Right to work" means that you don't really have any rights, and "At will" employment has nothing to do with your will, but the will of the ruling class.
It's one of the reasons there are so many poor people in the richest country in the world.
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This was one of our most successful triumphs. For those who don't remember, us sockpuppets and astralfurters managed to shut down unions cold, over Truman's impotent veto:
Taft-Hartley was introduced in the aftermath of a major strike wave in 1945 and 1946. Though it was enacted by the Republican-controlled 80th Congress, the law received significant support from congressional Democrats, many of whom joined with their Republican colleagues in voting to override Truman's veto. The act continued to generate opposition after Truman left office, but it remains in effect.
The Taft–Hartley Act amended the 1935 National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), prohibiting unions from engaging in several "unfair labor practices." Among the practices prohibited by the act are jurisdictional strikes, wildcat strikes, solidarity or political strikes, secondary boycotts, secondary and mass picketing, closed shops, and monetary donations by unions to federal political campaigns. The NLRA also allowed states to pass right-to-work laws banning union shops. Enacted during the early stages of the Cold War, the law required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government.
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...the law required union officers to sign non-communist affidavits with the government.
Hang on, I thought the communists were the bad guys?
Unions over generalize (Score:2)
Boycott ? (Score:2)
How do you boycott Amazon when ( between them and Walmart ) they have all but destroyed most of the local businesses
who sold us the products we sought ?
You can't even buy many things locally any longer.
Bezos will see Amazon suffucated by Unions (Score:2)
Customer behavior (Score:2)
If you believe a company or business is inherently unethical or behaves in a manner which you find dangerous, do not use them.
I did this years ago with Amazon. The world didn't end. I buy from other sources.