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| Remains of the candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky after this month's tornado. Was worker safety compromised by managers not allowing employees to leave to find safer shelter? |
Or not deal with them. Worker safety during severe weather events seems not to be a priority.
There' is admittedly s a lot of conflicting information and questions about how managers at the two devastated workplaces dealt with the oncoming disaster they faced on December 10. It does seem like more could have been done to protect workers.
At least eight people, possibly more, died during the tornado in the Mayfield Consumer Products factory. Six died when a tornado ripped apart the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville. There's also disturbing news of an Amazon delivery driver being ordered to continue her route despite tornado sirens going off around her, or she'd lose her job.
It became apparent at least a couple hours beforehand that Mayfield might be on trouble, given the path of a dangerous supercell and tornado originating in Arkansas.
According to NBC News, workers were told they'd be fired if they left.
'"For hours, as word of the coming storm spread, as many as 15 workers beseeched managers to let them take shelter at their own homes, only to have their requests rebuffed, the worker said. Fearing for their safety, some left during their shifts regardless of the repercussions."
Around 5:30 p.m. that day, tornado warnings went off around Mayfield. That warning turned out to be a false alarm. But it prompted employees to request going home because of the growing threat of a large, new tornado later that night that would devastate the town and level the factory.
You don't want to be out driving when a large tornado is nearby, of course. But had people left the factory an hour, two or even three hours before the tornado, they would have had time to access tornado shelters or basements, which are safer than large buildings with free standing roofs, like the candle factory.
A spokesman for Mayfield Consumer Products has denied the employees' accusations, calling them "absolutely untrue." Workers there are suing, so I'm sure more information will come out on this.
In Edwardsville, the Amazon worker in a warehouse near the one that was hit by the tornado said a colleague in the hit warehouse had her phone with her. That enabled the worker to receive the tornado warning. She said that allowed her to run for shelter. She would not have known the tornado was coming if not for the cell phone warning.
Amazon, however, takes a dim view of employees having their cell phones with them.
"Workers at two neighboring Amazon facilities in Edwardsville, just outside St. Louis, who were also in the path of the tornadoes overnight Friday, said they had little training in preparing for tornadoes and bristled at a company policy that multiple sources have said the company is trying to bring back Jan. 1, which would ban workers from having cellphones at work."
Many if not most people nowadays receive weather warnings via their smart phones. Banning cell phones would leave Amazon workers at the mercy of managers who might or might not hear tornado warnings, or not care enough if a tornado materializes.
NBC also said Amazon workers told them they are expected to work while there are tornado warnings, which is a big no-no. Especially in a building like a huge Amazon warehouse.
These warehouses are huge and flimsy, without a lot of support beams to support the structures in the extreme winds associated with a tornado. The entire south half of the Edwardsville Amazon warehouse was shredded.
Tornado warnings for Edwardsville were issued at least 20 minutes before the tornado hit. However, Amazon managers either didn't take the warnings seriously, didn't know what to do with them, or more depressingly if true, prioritized production over worker safety.
"....messages revealed a communication breakdown in which corporate failed to notify employees about the tornado even as it happened. The Intercept quoted one employee who said, 'Corporate and IT were troubleshooting network outages and found out the building was hit by a tornado from the media.'"
In other words, if this report is true, the mucky mucks were much more concerned about production problems than dealing with the real danger - the tornado.
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| The same day Mayfield was hit, this Edwardsville, Illinois Amazon distribution center was hit by a tornado, killing six workers. Critics are saying that Amazon's tornado and weather safety protocols are severely lacking. |
This reading of Amazon managements' dismissive attitude toward employees in danger is also reflected in the tale of an Amazon delivery driver caught out in her truck in worsening weather as tornado sirens blared around her.
Bloomberg offered screen shots of text messages between the driver and managers. I know this is going to help make this post long, but you really need to read the exchanges to see how cavalier Amazon can be with worker safety.
Driver: "Tornado alarms are going off over here."
Dispatch: "Just keep delivering for now. We have to wait for word from Amazon. If we need to bring people back, the decision will ultimately be up to them. I will let you know if the situation changes at all. I'm talking with them now about it."
Driver: "How about for my own personal safety? I'm going to head back. Having alarms going off next to me and nothing but locked buildings around me isn't sheltering in place. That's wanting to turn this van into a casket. Hour left of delivery time. And if you look at the radar, the worst of the storm is going to be right on top of me in 30 minutes."
Dispatch: "If you decided to come back, that choice is yours. But I can tell you it won't be viewed as for your own safety.The safest practice is to stay exactly where you are. If you decide to return with your packages, it will be viewed as you refusing your route, which will ultimately end with you not having a job tomorrow. The sirens are just a warning."
The things the dispatcher said are absolutely astounding. "Sheltering" in a delivery van on a street during a tornado is pretty much the most dangerous thing a person could do. Flying debris would be a mortal danger to anyone in a van.
"The sirens are just a warning." ' Well, duh!!!! The sirens are a warning that a tornado is approaching. So they should be disregarded? And saying that taking basic tornado safety will cost the driver her jo is absolutely beyond the pale.
What should have happened is the managers should have directed the driver to at least return to the warehouse to go into hopefully a safe room. Even better, the driver should have been instructed to stop, seek a business or home in a well constructed building, and go into a tornado shelter, a basement, or a windowless, interior ground floor room. I know the driver said there were a lot of locked buildings, but she could have found a safe refuge if she started looking at the moment the tornado sirens went off.
You can see this "profits before people" ethos in other weather safety incidents involving Amazon. Says The Intercept:
In one case earlier this year, an Amazon contractor in southern Illinois sent a letter to Amazon requesting several hours off his shift in preparation for Hurricane Ida. An Amazon seller support manager replied that the contractor's performance would suffer.
'It's important to confirm the shipment of orders by the expected date so that customers can see the status of their shipped orders online,' the manager told the contractor. 'Orders that are ship confirmed late may lead to increased negative claims, negative feedback and/or customer contacts and negatively impact customer."
Amazon's bungling or worse of tornado safety is just more evidence that the behemoth company's culture is to dismiss worker safety. There's been scandals on high rates of worker injury, inadequate bathroom breaks and lame Covid protocols.
And heat stroke, to get back to weather hazards. Like during the unprecedented heat wave last June in the Pacific Northwest.
Gizmodo, quoting the Seattle Times, said "workers at the company's Kent, Washington facility endured near 90 degree heat while some stations pushed employees to work at maximum speed in the unprecedented weather for so-called 'power hours.'
There have been several other complaints of heat, causing worker illness and even deaths at Amazon facilities in Chicago, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.
For all the above reasons, I don't do business with Amazon. I buy my goods directly from retailers and suppliers.
Of course, just one person - me - doesn't make a huge difference and Amazon remains hugely popular with consumers.
Amazon and other online retailers have "trained" consumers to expect their shipments to arrive at the drop of a hat. I work in customer service for an online retailer, and there is a thankfully small subset of "Karens" who don't give a whit if there's an excellent reason why their order is late, even if that reason is because of a collapsed warehouse or worker deaths.
Most of us are quite willing to have our packages slightly delayed if it means the driver remains safe from harm. Unfortunately, a minority of consumers think it's worth it for people to die to ensure the tchotchkes they ordered arrive instantaneously. (These are the same people who protest loudly when a TV station interrupts some dumb show like "The Bachelorette to broadcast tornado warnings).
Social media sites like Twitter and Reddit are rife with stories of bosses and corporations demanding employees show up to work in dangerous weather conditions.
That has to change. I can see a boss being miffed if an employee won't drive to work in a light snowfall in a northern climate. But it's time to rain hell on employers who insist workers risk their lives in hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, ice storms and other hazardous weather just to raise the bottom line by a few pennies.
This shouldn't be a new Gilded Age. This shouldn't be dystopia. Any employer who risks workers' lives for any reason, including dangerous storms, need to suffer some gawd-awful consequences.
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