Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Thursday May 10 2018, @11:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the Chaplin's-"Metropolis" dept.

The World Socialist Web Site reports

Injured Amazon worker Shannon Allen spoke to the International Amazon Workers Voice about the conditions at the DFW-7 fulfillment center in Haslet, Texas. Shannon described brutal working conditions, authoritarian-style surveillance of workers, and management demands to maintain frenetic rates of speed.

Shannon, 49, lives in Azle, Texas, a small town on the western outskirts of Fort Worth. She was injured while working at Amazon, returned to the job, and was injured again at the same workstation. Physically unable to continue work, Shannon now faces homelessness on top of her injuries, but she is determined to "fight or die".

[...] To maximize her income, Shannon volunteered for the overnight shift on Saturday through Thursday. The shift begins at 6:30 at night and ends at 5:00 in the morning. However, once Shannon received her first paycheck, she realized that her pay was $13 per hour for the weekend shifts, not the $13.50 that had been promised.

[...] Shannon worked as a "counter", whose job was to check the work of the pickers and stowers. Fail to catch a mistake, and become a target of a punitive system of "quality errors" and "write-ups".

Not long after starting to work at Amazon, Shannon began to recognize what she called the "dirty secrets". "These are the things they don't tell you about when you're hired."

Every time workers leave the facility, they are subjected to an invasive search. "You wait in line with a bucket like at the airport", she said. A worker is required to take off belt, shoes, and hat. Bags are sent through a conveyor belt and the worker goes through a full body scan. "If you set it off, you have to go through a second search, and they wand you front to back."

In a 10-hour shift, workers are permitted two 15-minute breaks and one 30-minute break for lunch. To go outside on a break, workers must submit to the search and go through the security line. "The lines to get outside on your 15-minute break are 20 to 30 deep on each line, and there are only two lines." Meanwhile, the breaks are timed from "scan to scan" at a worker's station, and workers are admonished, "Not one second more."

[...] "The heat is sweltering." Shannon described fans here and there, pointing down the aisles where workers walk to get to their stations, but not toward the workers to help them cool off. "Whoever thought of that design was a complete idiot", Shannon said. "Because we get no relief from the heat with them pointed down the aisle."

Temperatures reached 80, 85, and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. "In the summertime, it gets over 100 degrees in there", Shannon said. "Here is another genius idea. They have these signs hanging down that have our station numbers on them. These signs are probably as big as a 19-inch TV. They are in front of the fans and it blows the sign constantly. And we get no relief from the heat."

"July and August are the absolute worst", Shannon continued. "It was nothing to see an ambulance up at Amazon four to five times a night." Workers dropped at their stations, physically unable to continue working. "On my shift", Shannon said, "we were picking people up from heat exhaustion."

[...] In addition to having "expectations of the human body that are unrealistic", Shannon said the company expected workers to manage with faulty equipment and constant demands to meet strict time limits. Attempting to work at high speeds around faulty equipment was a common cause of injury.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @01:28PM (15 children)

    I will, thanks. Unless you're a chemist or a fisherman, I doubt you've measured the temperature of any water in the past ten years.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:16PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:16PM (#677863)

    how about a geek that water cools his computer?

    or grows hydroponically and is controlling the temperature of the water?

    or has an aquarium and needs to keep the fish from turning into stew?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:45PM (3 children)

      1) Are the freezing and boiling points relevant to any of those?
      2) Wouldn't a finer-grained scale be of more utility in all of them?

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:49PM (2 children)

        by Dr Spin (5239) on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:49PM (#678022)

        Can you guess the temperature to the nearest 1 degree F? I doubt it.

        OTOH, most of my family can guess it to one degree C with a very high success rate.

        When younger (she is now 92) my mother could do it to one degree in either, but I never met anyone else who could.

        --
        Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @08:42PM (1 child)

          Yes, indeed I can between 50 and 90F all year round. During the winter I'm better at spotting a one degree change below that range and during the summer I'm better at spotting one above it. You get out of practice at the extremes because they're not there to experience most of the time.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @12:11AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @12:11AM (#678197)

            Yes, indeed I can between 50 and 90F all year round.

            Well, looky what we have here, boys! A human thermometer! I think we should test him out at some temperature extremes. Just for "calibration" purposes, mind you.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:33PM (9 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @02:33PM (#677883)

    Disclaimer: I might be disqualified because I'm a scientist.

    The temperature scales are arbitrary, so it shouldn't really matter unless your math skills are so poor that you can't handle numbers with a decimal point (if you even need that level of precision). Non-science related measuring: yogurt making, beer brewing, bread making, precision cooking (e.g. with an immersion circulator), baking, and food Pasteurization (for babies, the elderly, or immunodeficient).

    • (Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:22PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:22PM (#677908)

      The whole argument is very boomer; older generations had to pick up a slide rule and do some mental addition or subtraction so they whined about the labor being forced upon them, whereas younger generations click a checkbox in LabView or check a localization setting on their PC/phone and the topic no longer matters because its effortless. Or for the lazy, "Alexa" ba ding "whats 70 degrees farenheit in celsius" "70F is blah blah point blah C" or very similar dialogue

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @03:47PM (7 children)

      As far as that goes, you're exactly correct. I'm just saying that having the first hundred degree span for the most commonly used temperature measurement purpose as opposed to one used several orders of magnitude less often is probably the way we should go.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:32PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:32PM (#677980)

        I don't actually really get why so many people get bent out of shape over the temperature scales (besides laziness and resistance to change). I doubt that the graduation of whole numbers on temperature scales really matters that much, since people either have a precise target in mind (e.g. 130F steak, 37C yeast starter) or precision is ignored (reporting outdoor temperature without specifying if it is current/high/average, where/when it was measured, humidity, wind speed or other factors that substantially change how it "feels").

        I care a lot more about distance, weight, and volume since conversions and scaling are a pain when using the imperial system (e.g. 1.3 miles in feet, 17 teaspoons in cups/gallons, 1.2 pounds in ounces).

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @04:48PM (3 children)

          Oh, I don't actually care much at all. I just like arguing with people who think theirs is better because of reasons that make no sense whatsoever. That's me, fighting willful stupidity one idiot at a time.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:40PM (2 children)

            by bob_super (1357) on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:40PM (#678017)

            Metric makes it easier to do the math, and to unambiguously communicate with 95% of humans.
            The daily usage is a matter of habit. I seamlessly switch between the two systems to accommodate whomever I'm talking to, but I'll convert to metric if I have to do math, then give them the result in their preferred units.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday May 10 2018, @05:48PM (1 child)

              Metric makes it easier to do the math

              Not with temperature it doesn't. The Kelvin scale has a fair claim to that because when they say zero, they mean zero and you don't have to deal with negative values outside theoretical physics. Celsius has no better claim than any other system though.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday May 11 2018, @04:12PM

                by bob_super (1357) on Friday May 11 2018, @04:12PM (#678437)

                Kelvin is better for really-cold/really-hot science.
                Since it uses the same equations and constants, but without carrying the extra 273.15 in every number, Celsius is easier for everyday stuff.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @01:05AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 11 2018, @01:05AM (#678216)

        here last year the température got to -32c and +33c (40 with humidex) . -25F and 95F dont look more useful to me .

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday May 11 2018, @01:22AM

          That's because you fail to grasp the significance of 0F being pretty fucking cold and 100F being pretty fucking hot. Yes, we can exist and function beyond them but they are round about where efficiency starts going to shit and significant precautions need to be taken to avoid death.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.