Gawker: Amazon’s Best Excuses for Abusing Sick and Pregnant Workers

[Hissyspit]

http://gawker.com/5842203/amazons-best-excuses-for-abusing-sick-and-pregnant-workers?utm_source=Gawker+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e293d1ae08-UA-142218-2&utm_medium=email#viewcomments

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EVIL

BY RYAN TATE SEP 20, 2011 4:16 PM 17,533

Amazon’s Best Excuses for Abusing Sick and Pregnant Workers

- snip -

And there's no question the heat in this hellhole was medically dangerous. Amazon even hired paramedics to wait right outside the warehouse's (closed!) loading dock doors to treat fainting or dehydrated employees. The 20 current and former workers interviewed by the Morning Call said the heat caused legs to cramp, lightheadedness, made people pass out (in one case right at the water fountain), caused dizziness, tingling and numbness and blurry vision. This past summer, at least 15 were set to the hospital by ambulance, with another 20 to 30 treated by paramedics on site. At one point, the flood of patients prompted an E.R. doctor to call an OSHA hotline: "I'd like to report an unsafe environment with a Amazon facility in Fogelsville … Several patients have come in the last couple days with heat-related injuries."

- snip -

Amazon.com and the managers it hired have come up with all sorts of ridiculous excuses for running a sweatshop that even hardened longtime warehouse workers described as the worst job they'd ever had:

Medical breakdowns in our warehouse had nothing to do with our warehouse:

Amazon and its contracted managers routinely shifted blame to other people. In a report to OSHA about a single particularly bad day in June, Amazon site safety manager Allen Forney said people were rushed from the warehouse to the hospital with... personal problems: "Fifteen out of 1,600 employees experienced heat-related symptoms. Six of these employees were treated at a local hospital ER for non-work related medical conditions triggered by the heat."

- snip -

But we give them delicious cold treats:

In a July call to OSHA, Amazon's Forney disclosed that the warehouse was ranging from 108-112 degrees but noted "Amazon initiated voluntary time off, allowing employees to go home if they wished and ice cream was available." A warehouse security guard later complained to OSHA that he'd seen two pregnant women at the warehouse taken to nurses due to the heat. Amazon refused to open the garage doors, he said, but "they do have ice pops going around and water everywhere." Delicious ice pops solve everything, really.

MORE

http://www.businessinsider.com/brand-loyalty-customers-2011-9?nr_email_referer=1&utm_source=Triggermail&utm_medium=email&utm_term=War%20Room%20Select&utm_campaign=WarRoom_Select_092011#1-amazon-20

The 20 Brands With The Most Loyal Customers


#1 Amazon

2010 rank: #7

One of three online retailers in the top 100, Jeff Bezos' mammoth online retailer jumps into the top spot, grabbing it from Apple's iPhone. Amazon has long thrived on its loyal droves of customers, using its brand and ability to offer lower shipping rates to keep customers coming back. And its loyalty program, Amazon Prime, is growing 20% each year, and now has 5 million customers signed up for it.

REST AT LINK

[hedgehog]

1. Anyplace we who use Amazon can register our complaints?

[Brickbat]

11. Stop using it and tell them every time you shop somewhere else.

Money talks.

[Retrograde]

15. I've had good luck with [e-mail]

I've luck with that when I couldn't get an answer through standard channels.

I used to be a support manager for a Fortune 100 company: part of my job was to investigate and respond to all the complaints that came to the CEO and president for my product line. They got attention fast, much faster than going through channels. It helps to 1) use that route sparingly and 2) have a well-defined, legitimate gripe that really can't be handled elsewhere.

[bighughdiehl]

2. I applied there

Blessing in disguise that I never heard back.
Repukes would also like to make it so that the paramedics
wouldn't even be waiting. "Let them die!" from some of the
same assholes who are proudly "pro-life".

[Gari]

3. I sent them an email

I took an approach that they might better understand. I complained that heat was very bad for INVENTORY - the glue that holds books together, electronics, food products, etc - and that I had read many product reviews on a wide variety of products complaining about something that had been ruined before it got to the buyer.

I suggested several ways to control the temperature for INVENTORY. Big fans, open bay doors, perhaps some solar panels to make air conditioning cost effective.


I did not try to appeal to their sense of decency, that perhaps subjecting fellow human beings to sweatshop conditions. I thought such an appeal would fall on deaf ears.

[Brigid]

8. Food products?

They're storing food products in that kind of heat? :wow:

Amazon has a facility in Indianapolis. I wonder if it's just as bad. I hope not. :(

[Gari]

16. Don't know if they are

However, just in case I mentioned food. I subscribe to several grocery items.

[brewens]

4. Now that really sucks. I WAS using Amazon quite a bit. Once

all the locally owned and operated stores were gone I figured I might as well. I would usually get a good deal, always making sure to find enough stuff I wanted to get free shipping. I thought I was doing okay buying from Amazon instead of Walmart. Unfortunately that is probably the main alternative in most cases.

I've been suggesting Costco carry a couple of things I had to usually get from Amazon. No luck yet.

[fascisthunter]

5. ...in order to enrich a few, do the corporate elite really have to abuse human beings?

Is there no other way for them to enrich the few? What is it really all for? It's possible to be wealthy and successful without harming others.

[CurtEastPoint]

6. If you are an Amazon customer (or not) WRITE TO THEM. Use this link to begin.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html?ie=UTF8&browse_node_id=508510

I did.

[hedgehog]

7. Thank you ! Nothing like an e-mail tied directly to my account so

they can see how much business I've given them over the years!

[Sedona]

10. Done

I am an Amazon Prime member and have placed 33 orders spending over $2500 since the beginning of 2011 and have been doing similar business with them for a good ten years.

Heres m e mail

I stopped shopping at Walmart years ago because they mistreat their employees.

Would you like me to stop shopping at Amazon too?

I look forward to your response to the link below.

http://gawker.com/5842203/amazons-best-excuses-for-abusing-sick-and-pregnant-workers?utm_source=Gawker+Newsletter&utm_campaign=e293d1ae08-UA-142218-2&utm_medium=email#viewcomments

[saras]

9. How to complain? Quit giving them money.

I'll let you complain at me all day as long as you keep on giving me money and don't require me to change my behavior.

What's more, me and my friends will share, and have a good laugh over, the complaints.

[KarenS]

12. I just sent them an email ~

We are also Amazon.com prime customers.

I told them I'll quit them in a heartbeat if these stories are true.

[Matariki]

13. Hey everyone, Tofutti break!!

"ice cream was available" :eyes:

[Rex]

14. So are they being investigated for abuse in the workforce?

When can we expect Amazon to be shutdown?

[MisterP]

17. might I recommend isbn.nu