BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?

Subject: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 06:20 PM

Heated tales from an Amazon.com warehouse

bottomline.msnbc.msn.com
By Allison Linn

The weak job market has left many Americans so desperate for any job that they will put up with a lot: Low pay, a lack of benefits, even unpleasant working conditions.

A recent story from The Morning Call, a daily newspaper in Pennsylvania, details just how difficult some of those jobs can be.
The story, based on interviews with 20 current and former workers, recounts the experiences of temporary and permanent workers whose job it was to move inventory through an Amazon.com warehouse in Pennsylvania for $11 or $12 an hour.

The workers told the paper they were pushed to work harder and harder, and reprimanded or threatened with being fired if they didn't live up to the expectations.

The worst part for many workers was that they were being asked to keep up the brisk pace during summer days when, they say, the heat index sometimes exceeded 110 degrees.

"During summer heat waves, Amazon arranged to have paramedics parked in ambulances outside, ready to treat any workers who dehydrated or suffered other forms of heat stress. Those who couldn't quickly cool off and return to work were sent home or taken out in stretchers and wheelchairs and transported to area hospitals. And new applicants were ready to begin work at any time," The Morning Call's Spencer Soper wrote.

The conditions prompted a complaint from a nearby emergency room doctor who had treated workers for heat-related injuries, and an inspection by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, The Morning Call reported.

After the OSHA inspection, Amazon installed additional fans and made other changes, according to the paper, but employees said it wasn't enough to keep some areas cool.

Elmer Goris, one of the employees interviewed, told The Morning Call it was unlike anything he had ever experienced.

"I never felt like passing out in a warehouse and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one," Goris said. "They can do that because there aren't any jobs in the area."

Both Amazon and the temporary staffing firm that employed some of the workers told The Mornng Call they take worker safety seriously but declined to address specific concerns the employees interviewed had raised.

In an e-mailed statement, an Amazon.com spokeswoman told msnbc.com the company does have air conditioning in some fulfillment centers, such as in Phoenix, and is in the process of adding air conditioning at other facilities.

"At Amazon, the safety and well-being of our employees is our number one priority. We have several procedures in place to ensure the safety of our associates during the summer heat, including increased breaks, shortened shifts, constant reminders and help about hydration, and extra ice machines," the company said in the statement.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Rapparee
Date: 21 Sep 11 - 10:24 PM

Praise boss when morning work bells chime
Praise him for bits of overtime
Praise him whose wars we love to fight
Praise him, fat leech and parasite.
                     Aw hell.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 08:00 AM

Jeez- ya think they might be better off if they organized and formed / joined a (GASP!) Union?

Naaah.... them Unions is the spawn of the devil.....

--------

THERE IS POWER IN A UNION (JOE HILL) (1913)
Tune: "There Is Power in the Blood" (L. E. JONES)

Would you have freedom from wage slavery,
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
Would you from mis'ry and hunger be free,
Then come! Do your share, like a man.

    CHORUS:
    There is pow'r, there is pow'r
    In a band of workingmen.
    When they stand hand in hand,
    That's a pow'r, that's a pow'r
    That must rule in every land --
    One Industrial Union Grand.

Would you have mansions of gold in the sky,
And live in a shack, way in the back?
Would you have wings up in heaven to fly,
And starve here with rags on your back?

If you've had "nuff" of "the blood of the lamb,"
Then join in the grand Industrial band;
If, for a change, you would have eggs and ham.
Then come! Do your share, like a man.

If you like sluggers to beat off your head,
Then don't organize, all unions despise,
If you want nothing before you are dead,
Shake hands with your boss and look wise.

Come, all ye workers, from every land,
Come join in the grand Industrial band.
Then we our share of this earth shall demand.
Come on! Do your share, like a man.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 08:03 AM

Or other socialist ideas like minimum wage and statutory conditions as to temperature, and rights against unfair dismissal...

Come the revolution brothers...

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 07:57 PM

Perhaps more publicity and a boycott is in order?

There are a couple of things I've been intending to order from Amazon, but if that's how they treat their employees...
Think maybe I'll let them know that I don't feel comfortable oredering from them anymore -- and won't, until I "hear" they are treating their employees better (and I don't just mean the temperature conditions). If they have to raise their prices to treat their employees decently, so be it. I'm willing to pay more if it means a better wage and benefits for their workers.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 08:40 PM

Don't waste time boycotting, ORGANIZE!

(with apologies to Joe Hill)

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: michaelr
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 09:05 PM

Ha! I'd like to see how Amazon responds to unionizing efforts...

Capitalism ain't pretty, folks. And they don't pay state sales tax!

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Greg F.
Date: 22 Sep 11 - 09:13 PM

Hey, if the employees won't stand up for themselves by organizing in their own defense, we can't do it for 'em, boycott or no boycott.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: DebC
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 09:05 AM

And don't get me started on the tomato growers in Florida

Tomatoland


Debra

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 23 Sep 11 - 09:46 AM

Jesus. I've just received a new computer from Amazon as well. There was me thinking they were among the good guys of the world. Well, a little bit more humane than most capitalist enterprises at any rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 24 Sep 11 - 05:45 AM

What does inventory mean in this context? Are we talking about moving warehouse stock? If so, I once had a temporary job as a warehouseman at the height of a very hot summer. It was nothing like the temperatures in California, but it was hot enough. You try muling great heavy boxes down impossibly narrow aisles in 80 degrees plus temperatures.

The firm I worked for, a well known high street chain I might add, combined shit wages with a rigid discipline, which included random searches at clocking out time. Yes, they got away with it because the nature of structural unemployment in Britain means that people in the lowest socio-economic groups have two choices. They either take those sorts of jobs or they stay on the dole.

I suspect that the conditions at Amazon are endemic in warehousing, and that Amazon type warehouses are only the tip of the iceberg as far as low paid unskilled jobs are concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 24 Sep 11 - 07:18 AM

A point to be noted is that Amazon is not alone, and the conditions noted there are not really an isolated case.

Despite the suggestion above: if the employees won't stand up for themselves by organizing in their own defense ...

It's nearly impossible to organize outside the shop, and the conditions leading to the conditions cited in the Amazon warehouse are a sufficiently high availability of unemployed, available, and in some cases desperate workers to permit the employers to consider workers expendable, since about all they have to do is wave the next applicant through the door when another one collapses inside.

Where are all the new jobs created by the reduction in income taxes already given to the wealthy? - - -

The money those [censored] were permitted to keep without paying any increment in taxes on high bracket net income goes directly into investments taxed as capital gains under a separate and entirely different tax structure even more favorable than the tax on earned income even at the already reduced rate on high bracket earnings. The income tax brackets that the blockheads say can't be raised have no bearing on the availability of capital investment which could provide increased employment, because the rich can make more by investing/trading in worthless paper taxed as capital gains.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Greg F.
Date: 24 Sep 11 - 08:28 AM

... a sufficiently high availability of unemployed, available, and in some cases desperate workers to permit the employers to consider workers expendable

Employers do, always have, and always will consider workers "expendable", whatever the state of the economy & the unemployment rate.

Like 'em or not, unions are the only thing standing between workers and exploitation- a lesson learned thru over a hundred years of struggle- a history that has largely been forgotten.

That's why we're re-living the Gilded Age & the reinstatement of conditions circa the turn of the last century.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 24 Sep 11 - 08:31 PM

DebC -- Thanks for that link!

Followed it & read the article -- and many of the other articles it links to -- and was shocked and appalled... powerful stuff.

I've bookmarked that site, now. Thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 25 Sep 11 - 09:13 AM

John, why is 'nearly impossible to organize outside the shop'?

Dani

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Sep 11 - 02:59 PM

Dani -

In the US, the employees of a company must petition for recognition of a union. Generally a petition signed by a certain percentage of employees must demand a vote by the employees, at an election set at a specified later time, at which only employees may vote. Under the most optimistic conditions, it takes about a year, sometimes much longer, from the time a signed petition is presented to get to a vote by the potential membership.

It is generally a condition in most states that one must be an employee to participate in the creation of a union, and one can only become a member of the "bargaining unit" by becoming an employee.

Whether a member of a union can remain a member if employment ceases varies from one state to another, depending on whether the state regulations permit only "open shop," "union shop," or "closed shop" unionization, and on the form of organization adopted by a successfully organized individual shop union.

As long as a particular place has a "revolving door" employment policy, there is no stable group of employees who can organize sufficiently to petition, hold an election, and then accomplish the only effective action a union can accomplish, negotiation of a contract for terms and conditions of employment.

Many jobs like the warehouse job described are operated essentially as "day work," with employees for a given day "selected" at the beginning of each shift from the mob at the front door. The person who worked the prior shift may have "preference" and some expectation of having a job at the next shift only because it reduces the minimal paperwork required to have a name, address, next of kin, and in some cases evidence of legal status, that is on record from the previous day for those who worked previously.

If there is no stable set of employees with expectation of continued employment, there is little possibility of creating a new union at that place of business. The legal requirements for forcing a company to accept a union take longer than the period for which anyone who signs a petition can expect to remain an employee and eligible to vote when the "union election" finally may occur.

It is possible in most states to have a "skilled trades" union that unemployed persons may join, and the entertainement industries are fair examples. Once such a union reaches a certain level of influence, they may be able persuade some employers to hire only union members; but the original organization of one of this kind remains virtually impossible without a sufficient number of employees at a few places who are able to form shop unions, with subsequent expansion into a "trades" status by affiliations between the original unions at individual places of employment.

Organizing a union anywhere in the US is an exceedingly difficult task, and where employement is "transitory" it is, as a practical matter, nearly impossible.

While it's technically illegal for an employer to ask if an applicant is a union member (except in the few "closed shops" where only union members may be hired), it's relatively easy to identify those who are, and the mob outside, in cases like at the warehouse, can be made aware that non-members are preferred (as long as no one in management says it out loud). Joining into an organization makes them less likely to get a job, and hence less likely to be willing to participate in any kind of organization, until, perhaps, the employment situation become exceedingly more desparate - in terms of total class warfare - than is the case now anywhere in the US that I've heard about.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 25 Sep 11 - 05:01 PM

For some idiotic reason a restaurant in the UK cannot advertise a job for somebody of a particular nationality. So when we go to our nearest Argentine restaurant, yes there are a couple of Argentines, but also an English lady dressed like a chicken (leggings outfit) who cannot speak a word of Spanish - although fluent in Estuary English!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: YorkshireYankee
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 06:04 AM

I once worked at a place where the employees had petitioned for a union. After an election was scheduled, the management arranged for another union to also be in the running.

Since it was not a run-off situation, the second union was a very effective 'spoiler' candidate (they must have been aware of that fact; I have always thought that if they actually cared about helping workers, they would have backed off); the number of votes for the two unions combined was greater than the number against having a union -- but that number was greater than the number of votes for either union alone...

Divide and conquer. [sigh]

Subject: RE: BS: Sweatshops in Pennsylvania?
From: GUEST,Dani
Date: 26 Sep 11 - 06:42 AM

OK, John, I get you. And you certainly seem knowledgeable about labor unions in America.

I just thought that your words I quoted sounded defeatist. And in this era of omnipresent media, and social networking, it seems hard to imagine that there aren't ways to 'organize' that don't have to do with formal unions. The fact that the article you posted was written is a step in the right direction, for sure.

Though, I live in NC, where there are appalling working conditions a-plenty, and still an amazing level of ignorance.

It amazes me that we have so MANY undocumented workers, who live and work in horrible conditions for the most part uncomplaining. And politicians who have no idea how the food gets on their tables every day, but holler about illegal immigration while they support the legislation that ships/busses workers in to work the fields.

And an unemployment level that seems to creep up, rather than down.

Interesting math.

God love Stephen Colbert. Is anyone listening?

Dani