4 ms·

Amazon warehouse in Poland continues to operate despite case of Covid-19

14 points by nathell 7y ago

thulecitizen 7y ago
'Yeah, who cares about the health of those backward Eastern Europeans!' - the collective unconscious of Europe A bulgarian friend told me many in Eastern europe say they feel like second class European citizens. That they are 'under' Western European countries like France, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. and also the Nordics. I see this pattern also in how the propertied + rentier [1] upper classes in the US (like Trump or anyone who wants to reopen the economy in the middle of a pandemic [2]), who don't care about the Precariat caring classes who subsidize their lifestyles in the first place. This sacrifice is now even coming close to being asked to pay with their lives. [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corruption-capitalism-guy-standing/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru... [2] https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1242110271490912256 https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1242110271490912256
- dang 7y ago
  Please do not take HN threads into regional or nationalistic flamewar. That's the last thing we need right now. (It's the last thing we ever need, and right now as well.)
- saiya-jin 7y ago
  Well Swiss have this enshrined even in laws, ie you can't ever buy a gun if you are from: Albania, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey. Literally this list of countries is in the laws. If you are from 'eastern EU', you have much, much harder time getting a work/residence permit - immigration laws treat you differently and harsher compared to 'western EU'. And if you are specifically from Romania or Bulgaria, it gets even harder. But this ain't about European mentality but Amazon's - I guess law is not so enforced there, or could be bent easier than say Germany. There are usually simple reasons for such a behavior, and somewhere in the equation sooner or later its about money.
  - thulecitizen 7y ago
    > Well Swiss have this enshrined even in laws, ie you can't ever buy a gun if you are from: Albania, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey. Literally this list of countries is in the laws. Wow, using such a list is pretty serious systemic discrimination in my eyes. 100% agree it's about money. I'd also add that it's about the money system itself, and the hoarding of 'Intellectual Property' (monopoly granted on technologies, creating artificial scarcity) by Western EU economies (together with the US) leading to a lack of full technology transfers, and limiting access to our rich shared inheritance. This method becomes a way for Western corproations to commodotize ideas and systems, and monopolize, leading to the slow technocratic takeover of the world that is currently going on: "How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. Adopting a historical approach, Dr Chang finds that the economic evolution of now-developed countries differed dramatically from the procedures that they now recommend to poorer nations. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing counties from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used" [1] Instead we'll need to focus on creating a rich P2P commons of distributed tech. Protocol Cooperativism, mutual credit accounting using asset backed currencies - built using frameworks and systems like Ceptr and Holochain. [1] https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb
bpodgursky 7y ago
Look, you've got two choices: - Keep the warehouses running after cases pop up, as cleanly as possible, with precautious - Shut down the delivery pipeline and make people go to the supermarket It's really not complicated. Do you really expect Safeway / Aldi/ Wal-Mart to permanently shut down if a single customer came through with Covid-19? No, that's insane, and would lead to widespread chaos and shortages. Treat fulfillment centers the same way. It's better than the alternative.
orloffm 7y ago
They will get closed soon probably. The quarantine has only been introduced today, and before that the life was as usual except for malls/gyms being closed and people working from homes. But everyone expected food and package delivery to work as usual. Now it's kinda another level, plus Polish government uses all opportunities it has to discriminate against global/EU companies in favour of small local businesses, so they will use this one for sure.
- wieza_cisnien 7y ago
  Quite the opposite. It takes one call from US embassy for the government to change course on anything. And giving workers no representation is part of the system: it is illegal for them to strike because of it so they do "cough on your manager" protest instead.

14 points by nathell 7y ago

'Yeah, who cares about the health of those backward Eastern Europeans!' - the collective unconscious of Europe A bulgarian friend told me many in Eastern europe say they feel like second class European citizens. That they are 'under' Western European countries like France, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, etc. and also the Nordics. I see this pattern also in how the propertied + rentier [1] upper classes in the US (like Trump or anyone who wants to reopen the economy in the middle of a pandemic [2]), who don't care about the Precariat caring classes who subsidize their lifestyles in the first place. This sacrifice is now even coming close to being asked to pay with their lives. [1] https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corruption-capitalism-guy-standing/ https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corru... [2] https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1242110271490912256 https://twitter.com/davidsirota/status/1242110271490912256

dang 7y ago
Please do not take HN threads into regional or nationalistic flamewar. That's the last thing we need right now. (It's the last thing we ever need, and right now as well.)
saiya-jin 7y ago
Well Swiss have this enshrined even in laws, ie you can't ever buy a gun if you are from: Albania, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey. Literally this list of countries is in the laws. If you are from 'eastern EU', you have much, much harder time getting a work/residence permit - immigration laws treat you differently and harsher compared to 'western EU'. And if you are specifically from Romania or Bulgaria, it gets even harder. But this ain't about European mentality but Amazon's - I guess law is not so enforced there, or could be bent easier than say Germany. There are usually simple reasons for such a behavior, and somewhere in the equation sooner or later its about money.
- thulecitizen 7y ago
  > Well Swiss have this enshrined even in laws, ie you can't ever buy a gun if you are from: Albania, Algeria, Sri Lanka, Kosovo, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey. Literally this list of countries is in the laws. Wow, using such a list is pretty serious systemic discrimination in my eyes. 100% agree it's about money. I'd also add that it's about the money system itself, and the hoarding of 'Intellectual Property' (monopoly granted on technologies, creating artificial scarcity) by Western EU economies (together with the US) leading to a lack of full technology transfers, and limiting access to our rich shared inheritance. This method becomes a way for Western corproations to commodotize ideas and systems, and monopolize, leading to the slow technocratic takeover of the world that is currently going on: "How did the rich countries really become rich? In this provocative study, Ha-Joon Chang examines the great pressure on developing countries from the developed world to adopt certain 'good policies' and 'good institutions', seen today as necessary for economic development. Adopting a historical approach, Dr Chang finds that the economic evolution of now-developed countries differed dramatically from the procedures that they now recommend to poorer nations. His conclusions are compelling and disturbing: that developed countries are attempting to 'kick away the ladder' with which they have climbed to the top, thereby preventing developing counties from adopting policies and institutions that they themselves have used" [1] Instead we'll need to focus on creating a rich P2P commons of distributed tech. Protocol Cooperativism, mutual credit accounting using asset backed currencies - built using frameworks and systems like Ceptr and Holochain. [1] https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb https://anthempress.com/kicking-away-the-ladder-pb

bpodgursky 7y ago

Look, you've got two choices: - Keep the warehouses running after cases pop up, as cleanly as possible, with precautious - Shut down the delivery pipeline and make people go to the supermarket It's really not complicated. Do you really expect Safeway / Aldi/ Wal-Mart to permanently shut down if a single customer came through with Covid-19? No, that's insane, and would lead to widespread chaos and shortages. Treat fulfillment centers the same way. It's better than the alternative.

orloffm 7y ago

They will get closed soon probably. The quarantine has only been introduced today, and before that the life was as usual except for malls/gyms being closed and people working from homes. But everyone expected food and package delivery to work as usual. Now it's kinda another level, plus Polish government uses all opportunities it has to discriminate against global/EU companies in favour of small local businesses, so they will use this one for sure.

wieza_cisnien 7y ago
Quite the opposite. It takes one call from US embassy for the government to change course on anything. And giving workers no representation is part of the system: it is illegal for them to strike because of it so they do "cough on your manager" protest instead.