Work Until You Bleed: Amazon’s Workplace Safety Problem | The Class Room
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- Опубликовано: 13 июн 2024
- 00:00 Leonard Johnson’s story
1:25 The rise in accidental deaths
2:37 The history of worker safety
5:08 Amazon's accidents problem
6:08 What can we do about it?
Accidental deaths are currently higher in America than at any time since we’ve been keeping record. In 2020, more than 200,000 people died by accident. In car crashes [42,051], house fires [3,500], drug overdoses [93,331], and falls on the job [805].
But it isn’t always random, and we really shouldn’t be saying “accident.” Author Jessie Singer says unintentional deaths are on the rise because, since the 1990s, we’ve deregulated most of our economy to benefit corporations.
And today, companies like Amazon push workers to the limit to reach impossible quotas. The end result? Amazon warehouses had a higher rate of injuries than any other employer in the warehouse industry and over twice the rate of its main competitor, Wal-Mart.
We talked to Leonard Johnson, one of 1,000s of Amazon workers that is injured each year, often severely. Leonard split his head open when he tripped on a ladder and had to take three days off to recover. But when he came back, Amazon’s automated system wouldn’t let him clock back in. He’s still an employee there but hasn’t worked a day since and hasn’t been paid. was injured while loading boxes onto the conveyor belt when he tripped on a ladder and hit his head. He took three days off to recover, but when he got back, he found they wouldn’t cover his days off and they wouldn’t let him clock in. Leonard hasn’t worked a shift since then.
In this episode, we’ll investigate the conditions that caused Leonard’s accident, the history of workplace safety, how Amazon exploits the environment created by deregulation and what we can do to force them to change.
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I remember someone telling me some time ago “ if you fall you are fired before you hit the ground “
Damn
Like a crashing Tesla turning off autopilot a nanosecond before it crashes.
I got fired from Sidelines Bar and Grill for having to take off work for a dental emergency. (wisdom tooth went bad and had to come out immediately). They fired me for it. I filled for unemployment. They challenged it and I had to go to over the phone "court" with my manager and a judge. I won and got my unemployment. Never let them push you around.
We're back in the 1920s all over again
History repeats itself.
Putin is trying to repeat Czar history. Sadly he forgets how it ends.
And sliding into the 1880’s
Worse - in the 20s, doctors were affordable, and you could get cocaine and opium to help you keep working, at least.
That because everyone keeps voting Rep in power to lock relegation out so they don't have to do safety for the workers. That why they run on gov shouldn't be in your business no gov should be there forcing these companies that wants to rob their working into unsafe working conditions. As long Rep keep getting away with not having to do safety instead they have corporate using less workers if they don't work overtime everything else so don't don't have to hire more people. They will keep getting away with this until people wake up demand better working places. Just like people shouldn't have to work 60 70hrs week still can't pay your bills it scam by Rep in power corporation corrupt judges they installed to do the corporate biding at the rest' of the people expense. Just like criminal justice system a joke needs to be reform. The whole system if people not noticed everything against the law, crime for us. But Rep , corporate judges,rest of the rich people them same laws are against their constitution rights and freedoms but not the rest of our.
This is why i will never give them any business
Chewy is similar to amazon. When you are in a region called "singles pack" there is a qouta of packages that must be packed out every hour and when i worked there it was set at 90 packages. This qouta must be met regardless of the what items it may be, such as chew toys and assorted boxes of dog treats or several consecutive pallets of 80 lb bags of dog food (and yes they do come in 80 lb bags in some brands) and when I was there it was 90 pqckages an hour. The process of packing out an item included assembling the box from the array of boxes beside you, tossing the item in the box, taping it up, and pushing it on the line. My spine has taken years to recover from the damages that I incurred from overexertion to meet those qoutas. This is not to say that I want people to stop ordering from Chewy, think of your pets welfare first, I just want people to know what goes on there
😔 Guilty. Chewy only gives free shipping with an order over $50. So I have to order 4 cases of Rachel Ray's dogfood at a time. It always comes in 1 box. The price per case in grocery stores went from $14.99 to $19.99 in a year. I can't even buy a case of it in the store anymore. Now they only sell it by the unit for $3.35 if they carry it at all. With the $50 minimum order, you're going to get heavier boxes. If I was buying dry dogfood, I'd have to order 2 bags. But I can order a box of Eyelashes from Amazon for $10 and still get free shipping. I would say working at Chewy is more likely to hurt your back. I'm sorry.❤️
The same thing happened to me when I was in the double jack, picking up 2 totes of kitty litter and with plenty of vehicles in front of me waiting for the one machine that is taking pallets down from the high place to be done
I remember being told this whole building is a osha violation at fedex..
Pass the PRO act!
A friend of mine lost 38 lbs in one month and never gets time to eat or pee bc it's too long of a walk..she had a UTI now and is dehydrated😡😡😡🥵🥵🥵
She prob needed to lose the weight, will amazon get reimbursed for that?
@@xxNephlimxx lol you are in the wrong neighborhood. Get out of here.
I tried to do a FedEx loader job and I lasted a single day and burned something like 4000+ calories in a few hours and almost passed out. These jobs are some of the most inhumane garbage like ever.
Haven't used Amazon in over 4 years. Still forget they exist until I see a van in the street. People, please stop working these slave jobs and find a skill.
Listen I work at Amazon in Connecticut and they treat employees like trash since Amazon really doesn’t train their employees. Amazon has the worst hr and they don’t care enough and or takes responsibility for their actions. Employees are facing job lost due to this because it doesn’t even matter from an employee injury, personal reasons, and a illness. I reach the top numbers for my locations but the stations I work in and a lot of stations are always broken and or not up to standards.
I got sick from bad working conditions. Ruined my health and career. Insurance gave me so little. 4 people got sick and one woman died.
I just found this channel and it’s amazing
It baffles me that despite all this Americans still expect things like same day or next day shipping, especially for stuff they could move their fat asses to the store to get.
When you expect such extreme convenience, don't be surprised it comes at a human cost.
Well put
Convenience is like a drug. We alre all addicted to it.
@@nil981 that was bezos literal business strategy 🤣
I love 2 day shipping, but I would gladly wait more if they made any changes to accomodate worker safety. They did that in the beginning of Covid, and they didnt lose any customers.
This is part of the system that we encourage one way or another, remember when you had to grow your food? Neither do I.
Hard to believe how some people idolized Reagan
Right, The Reagan administration was the beginning of the problem.
@@christinaulibarri4777 I wouldn't say the beginning but it did kick into overdrive when Reagan become president.
I remember when he fired the airtraftic controllers. The only thing that trickled down to me was being fired 2 years later. Reagon could care less about people who actually had to work for a living.
Why can't we have individual businesses warehouseing their own products with their own websites that we can order directly from? It used to be like that, fark Amazon.
Building a warehouse is a major expenditure for any company. They always seek out the cheapest real estate & the lowest construction costs. Only a multi-billion dollar behemoth like Amazon can afford to build warehouses in Staten Island in NY. But the NY area is one of their biggest markets, so of course, they spent the $$ to build there. Smaller businesses can't afford to do that. But Beelzebos & his greed are the reason why Amazon treats it's employees like crap.
That is one major facepalm. A lot of companies would share warehouses to save costs or had rather limited supplies available. This isn't just an Amazon or warehouse problem. Corporate greed and politicians that work for the rich have just been getting worse.
@@lopoa126 But how would 2 competing businesses, meaning they stock the same/similar merch, be able to share warehouse space? Part of why Amazon is such a gorilla because they offer free shipping on anything shipped from their warehouses. If they teamed up with Walmart & split the costs & space of a warehouse, they'd be in direct competition with each other under 1 roof. Esp. when Amazon forces sellers to offer their at the lowest online price, even lower than at their own website.
You CAN go to many companies websites and order directly from them. Most just hedge their bets and offer both options. This is how i have been avoiding amazon for a long while since bezos went pure dark side.
Because we have Rep in their power doing the laws biding for few companies to steal rest of the small business people can't do it because big corporations trying to rigged everything to few companies
As a current Amazon employee of California I hate my job I can’t use the bathroom without getting a dum pa talking about how many box’s I sent out smh 🤦♂️ they tell us there’s no quotas yet they wanna say your not packing enough I told them that in California there is no quotas and they told me true but we go by progress now and to me that sounds the same as a quota
It's all Orwellian nonsense doublespeak with big corps. Now get back to work slave.. I mean.. valued partner.
Wow do you make enough money there to afford punctuation? That blithering diatribe you just delivered indicates that you are lucky to be employed any where
One of many things that bug me about this 'lack of workers' BS is what's going on in Iowa, my home. So, recently the GOP led state legislature and GOP Governor passed a law cutting the amount of weeks one can collect unemployment in half, from 26 to 13, and added language that dictates that anyone collecting unemployment will see it terminated if they don't accept a lower paying job then what they had before. All the while, the state's unemployment rate is at a record low of 2.7%. Lower then it was before the pandemic tossed everyone to the winds. They keep crying that there's some 50,000 unemployed in Iowa who are lazy SOBs only wanting to milk the unemployment system.
So, if the rate is at record lows, and yet so many lazy SOBs are unemployed, seemingly by choice, which is it? It can't be both. Where did all those low paid workers go who got kicked to the curb by their employers during the pandemic? Obviously they can't all be part of that 2.7%. After all, there are always a small % of people who are lazy SOBs and simply don't want to work, and probably ten times that in people who don't want to work for slave wages that won't feed them, let alone house, clothe, etc., them.
Scratching my head. Perhaps there have been so many additional jobs created in the state that there are simply not enough working age people to fill them. Or, perhaps, more people moved out of the state then the state is saying. Perhaps many families who were working 2.5 jobs per household spent the pandemic shut downs examining their options and learning to budget better, discovering that if most of what one spouse earned went to pay for child care, it would be cheaper to stay home and look after the kids. Just as so many retirees who'd been working part-time and full-time jobs, either to keep busy, to make mad money, or to pay for everything Social Security doesn't, gave up and learned to live even more lean lives then they were, they too, moved out of state, or so many died from Covid that there simply isn't enough of our elders left to make an impact in the jobs market.
Iowa: Record numbers of employers looking to fill jobs; record numbers of lazy SOB's who won't work; record unemployment lows (2.7%)...
Perhaps these employers should have found ways to retain those suddenly valuable employees instead of kicking them to the curb to save money. Perhaps the job growth has finally exceeded worker growth. Perhaps they are all lying because, apparently, that's the accepted, cool thing to do if your an elected officials.
Yeah, many older people retired and some died of covid or other things, and there are simply not as many young people to replace them since the old boomer generation is like twice as big as the millennials. The decline in population numbers was always going to catch up but covid made it catch up all at once. Plus the job numbers are bs. Most companies are always "hiring" but never actually hire people, many places just always leave job listings up even if they aren't actually hiring. Some just have quotas for things like low wage job turnover rates which make it seem like they are creating new jobs.
And the unemployment numbers are bs too since they literally only count people that are receiving unemployment benefits which obviously most people who got let go aren't able to collect.
All the economic numbers are total bs created by bankers to further their control over the population. Just look at how inflation is calculated after they changed it back in the 80's (I think it was the 80's), makes no sense now. They can literally substitute cheaper things that are not even related to make inflation look lower.
Walmart should be next to Unionize they don't care about the worker either and need the Union to speak up for the worker.
He'll no, my wife works for Walmart as a traffic clerk in a distribution center. She made 90k last year and gets great benefits. Why would we want some left wing stupid union take her money for nothing. I left UPS because the teamsters were full of crap. F*ck unions
If you notice, they said "amazon is the second larges private employee" - the first one is walmart, and they are trying to catch up to amazon, so I'm sure there will be a lot of other docs about them.
Thank you, MPU.
Amazon is worth 1.27 *Trillion Dollars
This is why I don't like fooling with Amazon but it's most like you're forced to sometimes, since stores don't want to keep items on the shelve
You really don't , you always have a choice....don't let them decide for you
ALL Companies have quotas, even office workers do! Don't think that other Companies didn't build their enterprises on the backs of the poor. They ALL did. Nothing new here!
And Amazon got WEF self proclaimed government seal of approval of best cie...
These injuries can be a serious injury.
Good stuff
SLAVE LABOR...🏋️
Well they are slaves, hopefully they will be replaced by robots soon because they are obsolete.
Dang
2:24 as a West Virginian that is accurate, but we don’t have NS here, we use CSX
South Park did a pretty good parody of Amazon
i was never injured at fedex, but i came close. Nearly slipped on rollers, trucks were hazardly stacked to the point i went ahead and brought in my own hard hat. Which paid off as one day i was forced to cause and avalanche to put boxes within reach so i could unload them. Was struck in the head, i was uninjured, but my hard had was knocked off my head.
one time our less used van line needed to be unloaded. Instead of using the belts intended design, i was told to wedge a board into the rollers and stand on that board and throw the boxes on the conveyer belt. It was quicker and less man power, but i should have left right then for such a stupid risk.
💰= power
An injured worker at Amazon is covered by Workman's Comp. I didn't hear that anywhere in this report. It's a horrible system. But if you're seriously injured, file a claim. Get a lawyer if you have to. Yes, Amazon workers should unionize. And why isn't OSHA called in?
YES there are important things like you so Brilliantly pointed out, left out of this. They also talked about people getting hit by vehicles. I worked on installing crosswalk improvement in a city. I would watch people walk on the sidewalk on my off time. What I saw was no matter how much the city improved sidewalk crossings. Be it strobe light flashing, orange flags to hold as you cross, better island in the middle of the street. I still saw people just JAY WALK. Not even walking to the crosswalk less than 20 feet away. Just walked across a 4 lane roadway, that the city had spent thousands of dollars improving the crosswalk.
Then time and time again there would be another car/Pedestrian hit by a vehicle NOT in the crosswalk.
I worked there for 3 weeks and it sucked ass lol. I injured my shoulder and they didn't give a dam. Saw that as a red-flag. I Did quit on the spot as I was getting yelled at by some feminist supervisor. Joined the Union and man, day and night difference how they treat you.
respect your viewers time
OSHA???? WHERE IS OSHA?????
The employee needs to file a complaint with OSHA. They just dont investigate automatically and they rarely do a physical visit of place of business.
The scotus already undermined them once recently. I hope osha can still be effective.
OSHA doesn't protect you from retaliation either
It’s sad to say but sometimes horrible events are needed to cause systemic changes. Although now media is so good at blocking any worker rights problems. Big Change, not small change in the margins, is in the air. hopefully.
Unions were formed because they wanted safe work conditions and higher wages. Mainly it was safe work conditions. Money is no good when one is dead.
It all goes back to Reagan.
Sue you were on the job , if you don't get any money shut them down whatever way is necessary. You have nothing to lose
Tax bezos and musk back to millionaire status
Laughing laughing my f****** ass off you just figured this out old man. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I have heard nothing but horror stories. Target did that to me. They love you until review time. They love you until your hurt. Then theyoutrigjt HATE YOU.
My niece worked at Amazon for onw (1) Day! Why?
They would'nt let heruse the restroom. She left right then. Pee'ed & out the door!
What a bunch of BS! I work at Amazon and none of this happens.
Lot of blood on Amazons hand
That's fucked up
Why are there no captions for this video?
should be there now!
The more I hear about Reagan, the more his smile creeps me out. He was definitely not a good dude. His economics certainly sucked.
This is how they treat their warehouse workers and this how they fire their corporate office employees with disabilities: ruclips.net/video/nByPWwBy6Sw/видео.html
Work work work. Make that money. Make that money.
Where the hell did you get the figure of $21.3 billion for the value of Amazon? I'm guessing all the people that line might have gone through don't know a damn thing about modern finance, since the average person could easily have detected that as incorrect.
@@jonny_laguna The fuck does that mean? What figure is net worth? Net worth of what? Higher than what?
Deli I used to work at fired one of their longest working employees because she sliced her hand open on a meat cutting machine.
Claimed she left without telling anyone. Which is total BS, I was there pressing a bandage onto her palm from the first aid kit. We emptied two whole aid kits trying to gaze it and staunch the bleeding before the ambulance showed up.
every problem in today can be lead back Reagan. I hope at-least he didn't start a war. deregulate military. Military are the forces almost every country and every party wants their people to respect at the same time knowing that they are trained to be dehumanize.
If you don’t like this don’t buy their products that’s how business works.
Should Americans boycott companies like Amazon, Starbucks. Apple. Do we pick up a book or visit with our neighbors to support the actors, writers and workers in that industry? I stopped buying Starbucks already. Shopping online with Amazon; I could live without. Hate to buy a new phone, I won't use apple tv or go to the movies. Farmworkers.....I love the fruits and veggies. How can we support your rights? No hotel nights find a friend. Nurses.....we'll wash our hands, take vitamins and try not destroy our bodies with crazy driving and bad choices. Will our elected government officials stand in solidarity to fight years of injustice? Who will take bribes to keep up their lies? More eyes watching, listening and investigating powerful people linked to corruption, Will the value of our "Life work balance" make them sign a contract protecting workers? mmmm
Amazon kills forklift drivers.
Ronald keeps getting hit this decade.
OMGGGG JUST WORK!!!!!!!!! GOD LEEEEEEEEE WORKKKK!!!!!!!!
Welcome to any non corporate construction job in the country... And I'm sure Amazon workers are paid more and with better benefits...
I know union and non union construction workers in Los Angeles. They make way more than an Amazon worker in the warehouse! Your comment doesn’t make any sense. I hoped you are paid to do this bs, because if you aren’t, you are being played by rich evil people and politicians who don’t even know you. Or care about you.
Still liking that unfettered capitalism?
And how did Jesus react to the moneychangers?
Sniff sniff
It may seem blunt, perhaps even unfair, but I cannot help but say it: "Here's a thought. Don't work for Amazon. Quit. If you believe a tenth of the BS on the news and via social media, there are far more jobs at the moment then people willing or able to work them. You don't have to be treated this way. I imagine even Amazon would have to change it's procedures and thought process where employees are concerned if they can't get anyone to work for them more than a week."
Mf, you think you're the first one with this bright idea? When you need money to your feed your family, put a roof over your head and send your kids to school AND you're already scraping by, paycheck to paycheck quitting and hoping a job falls on your lap that pays enough to survive isn't an option
If Amazon absorbs all the other retail businesses that were operating in the area, and is the only major job provider now, what are the people supposed to do? Only option is to move out, but only way to move out is to make money, and the only way to make money is to work for Amazon.
@@ashwinsridhar1845 where I live, the governor and employers constantly gripe about a worker shortage. There are help wanted signs in nearly every business of all types, everywhere I go. From everything I've heard about Amazon, the majority of those who get jobs there are as good as temporary as between the conditions, the insane pace and production quotas demanded of them, they burn out or get fired sooner than later. All I am saying is, "Amazon will continue to get away with how it treats people as long as there are people desperate enough to convince themselves that somehow, someway, Amazon will treat them better then everyone else."
FYI, Amazon opened one of those fulfillment centers in Altoona, Iowa. Not far from where I live, and they run constant adds seeking help. But so do most other major corporations. I can see the Firestone/Bridgestone plant from my yard. My dad worked there for 30 years. They have had a help wanted banner on their fence for three years. Titan tire, on the south side, have had a banner on the side of their building for six years.
Every restaurant in town that my company services, complain that they cannot get enough help, even with offering hourly rates unheard of before the pandemic. Min. wage here in Iowa is just over $7.25 and know what? Absolutely nobody pays min. wage anymore because nobody, I mean nobody, will work for it. Not when McDonalds is starting at $12 and many restaurant chains at $15. It's on all those signs I see every day as I drive by.
So, last I heard, that Amazon fulfillment center in Altoona, Iowa, is paying a starting wage of $15/hr. Firestone is $20, so is Titan tire, and they still cannot retain help. And retaining is the important part here. To retain employees means to give them inducements to stay. Benefits, decent wages, fair treatment.
So, I stand by my opinion. And it is an opinion. If you want Amazon to treat it's people better, make it freaking harder for them to get people to abuse. Better to wash dishes for $12-15/hr. then to be abused.
I think the bigger issues here are wage theft, and lack of injury compensation. Changing jobs doesn't change that issue. Hopefully you never get injured on the job either...
@@JasonNZ42 Agreed. I went out and got a policy that costs me $10 a month but pays out if I get hurt on the job. My sister has it and it worked for her.
It's healthy being a homeless person
Amazon is a joke of a company
Greed has no honesty
I was forced to work go red team thanks!
go red team! thtats the way it be in texas and floridia
Workman's comp.wtf
Is slavery over