26 ms·

Amazon fires worker who led strike over virus

835 points by blago 7y ago

AndrewKemendo 7y ago
Is the newsworthy claim that this firing was illegally retaliatory? In other words, is the claim that Chris Smalls was being vocal in reporting safety/health issues and was illegally fired as a result?
- amazoniancrooks 7y ago
  It's the most likely explanation, despite Amazon's obfuscations.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Really? Because the employee admits that he went to work despite being exposed to a covid-19 person, and despite being ordered not to. Those facts are not even in dispute.
    - jhayward 7y ago
      He was exposed 18 days before he was ordered to quarantine. Please do not try to say that there is some factual basis.
      - koheripbal 7y ago
        So? He did not get a covid-19 test, so for all Amazon knows, he's a carrier. There are plenty of lightly-symptomatic people who are ill and contagious for longer than 14 days.
        fzeroracer 7y ago
        Weird how no one else around him was quarantined. If he was contagious, then why didn't they quarantine everyone he was in contact with as well? Maybe because it was bullshit and retribution on Amazon's part.
        koheripbal 7y ago
        That is what he claims. If you only believe one side of the story - then obviously you'll side with that side.
        Craighead 7y ago
        Why are you so set on obfuscation?
    - GavinMcG 7y ago
      No one else who was exposed to that person was ordered not to. This employee was singled-out.
    - orestarod 7y ago
      You omitted some facts, like that he was quarantined 18 days after the contact, and no one else who also came in contact was quarantined
    - radcon 7y ago
      You should really take the time to learn all the facts before wrongly blaming the worker.
      - sigzero 7y ago
        Or the company...
ertemplin 7y ago
> Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came on site today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk The employee was exposed to another employee who tested positive for covid-19. They asked him to stay home with pay for 14 days and he came back to the building to protest, putting other employees at risk.
- dehrmann 7y ago
  If it was actually on-site, yes, Amazon did the right thing. If it was by the street--somewhere any member of the public has free speech--no, but assuming he was exposed to SARS-CoV-2, going out in public is pretty messed up, and pretty hypocritical.
  - bpodgursky 7y ago
    It's generally legal to fire employees for "free speech" activities done outside the workplace. More morally hazardous of course, but I don't think anyone would really even challenge the cause here (it's trivially easy to argue that this behavior shows they would endanger workers within the workplace as well).
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      Even in the United States, it's typically illegal to retaliate against employees for organizing: https://www.workplacefairness.org/unions-retaliation https://www.workplacefairness.org/unions-retaliation
    - sudosysgen 7y ago
      Except if that free speech is an attempt to organize.
- amazoniancrooks 7y ago
  That's what Amazon claims anyway. Best to take that with a pinch of salt, given their track record.
earthshot 7y ago
The worker was exposed to covid-19, was told to quarantine, and came back on site anyway. This strikes me as an egregious safety violation and a truly excellent reason to fire the worker.
- amazoniancrooks 7y ago
  You should know that cheerleading Amazon's continued abuse of employees is not a good look. And "truly excellent reason"? Who even speaks like this anyway? This is someone's livelihood you're talking about.
  - RHSeeger 7y ago
    > You should know that cheerleading Amazon's continued abuse of employees is not a good look. That's true, but that doesn't appear to be what happened here. It doesn't appear to be abuse. > This is someone's livelihood you're talking about. And, if I'm understanding it correctly, that person intentionally effectively brought a deadly weapon to the workplace after being told not to. Their response doesn't seem like abuse, it seems within reason, even if maybe there were other, better options.
    - pwinnski 7y ago
      You are not understanding it correctly, because Amazon is trying to make it difficult to do so. The infected person last reported to work on March 11. A two-week period had passed. The striker was the only person ordered to self-quarantine, and he was ordered to do so only after announcing his intention to lead a strike, after any risk of infect had passed.
    - jowsie 7y ago
      > He was exposed on March 11, and Amazon told him to self-quarantine only after he announced plans to strike, MORE than two weeks later.
      - RHSeeger 7y ago
maallooc 7y ago
Thank god they fired them.
BoiledCabbage 7y ago
Here is the key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th. Over the weekened he said he is organizing a strike, so over the weekend they order him and only him into quarantine. A full 18 days after his 5 min exposure. From my reading of it, this almost certainly looks like retaliatory action due to the strike, and a company using the excuse of quarantine to cover it up. Key excerpts from a much clearer article. And yet again, why you never 100% believe a company's PR response when they're trying to cover themselves. They tell just enough truth, but use it to intentionally mislead. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strike-worker-fired-organizing-walkout-chris-smallls https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strik... > According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March. Had Smalls been exposed that day, a 14-day mandatory quarantine would have made him eligible to return as soon as 25 March. > Smalls said Amazon did not send him home until 28 March, three weeks after the exposure. > “No one else was put on quarantine,” he said, even as the infected person worked alongside “associates for 10-plus hours a week”. > “You put me on quarantine for coming into contact with somebody, but I was around [that person] for less than five minutes,” he told Vice. > According to Amazon, no one else was fired. Smalls said he was considering legal action, calling it “a no-brainer”.
- voxic11 7y ago
  I think you can be contagious 18 days after exposure, isn't the incubation period around 2 weeks? And we know there are asymptomatic cases so a lack of symptoms after that period doesn't mean he isn't contagious. However if he was indeed the only employee asked to quarantine that is highly suspicious.
  - btilly 7y ago
    The incubation period averages 5 days or so. The 2 weeks figure is because we're reasonably confident that if you haven't turned up with symptoms in 2 weeks, you aren't going to.
    - nck4222 7y ago
kitanata 7y ago
This is a union busting, anti-labor and retaliatory firing. It is illegal in the United States. Multiple employees have spoken out about the working conditions at Amazon's warehouse facilities over the last couple of weeks. Common complaints include a lack of protective equipment, sanitization, health monitoring, and working "shoulder to shoulder". Workers are getting sick, and Amazon isn't properly reporting the actual cases of COVID-19 at their facilities. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/amazon-warehouse-employees-grapple-with-coronavirus-risks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/amazon-warehouse-employees-g... Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/whole-foods-amazon-instacart-workers-to-strike-over-safety-concerns/ar-BB11VwT1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/whole-foods-amazon... Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/whole-foods-workers-to-strike-after-amazon-instacart-employees-walk-out https://www.thedailybeast.com/whole-foods-workers-to-strike-... Mr. Smalls announced ahead of time that he was going to lead a general strike at his facility in solidarity with the instacart and wholefoods strike on the same day. This was reported in the media. Amazon knew this was being organized and waited to fire the worker until after the planned protest strike occurred. Source: https://apnews.com/cf27e9bec86d846447aad7e632484bea https://apnews.com/cf27e9bec86d846447aad7e632484bea Here is Mr. Smalls talking about this in detail: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/30/staten-island-whole-foods-workers-walk-out-over-coronavirus-concerns.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/30/staten-island-whole-fo... - All he was asking for was for the building to be sanitized after a confirmed case of COVID-19 occurred at his facility, at Staten Island near the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States in New York. The attorney general of New York recognized this issue for what it is. --- New York Attorney General Letitia James said late Monday evening that "it is disgraceful that Amazon would terminate an employee who bravely stood up to protect himself and his colleagues." "At the height of a global pandemic, Chris Smalls and his colleagues publicly protested the lack of precautions that Amazon was taking to protect them from COVID-19," she said. "Today, Chris Smalls was fired. In New York, the right to organize is codified into law, and any retaliatory action by management related thereto is strictly prohibited." Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/tech/amazon-worker-fired-staten-island-warehouse/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/tech/amazon-worker-fired-stat... --- Here is another article discussing the actual conditions of Mr. Smalls Facility: --- Despite Amazon’s efforts, Amazon employees at multiple facilities who spoke to CNBC argue that the measures aren’t enough to keep them safe. They say uneven safety precautions at facilities across the country have sown feelings of distrust between workers and their managers. Workers say they’ve become worried that managers aren’t being honest about whether employees are sick with the virus, so that they can keep the facilities open. At some facilities, workers say essential supplies like hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are rationed or there’s none available, putting them at risk of catching the virus. Warehouse workers say they’re forced to choose between going to work and risking their health or staying home and not being able to pay their bills. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-c... --- Amazon is in the wrong here. They retaliated against Mr. Smalls. This was a labor movement action, and they illegally fired Mr. Smalls for organizing at this facility. These workers aren't asking for more money. They are asking for safe and sanitary working conditions. Are they not entitled to a healthy working environment? Edit: Formatting issues. This was a copy-paste from a comment I made on a /r/business thread on reddit. Formatting on HN is a bit different. :)
booleandilemma 7y ago
Amazon being Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQeGBHxIyHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQeGBHxIyHw
throwawaymanbot 7y ago
Jeff Bezos has lost any respect I have had for him.
freepor 7y ago
They’ll settle out of court with this guy in 2 years for $10 million but it’s worth it to them to silence him at the present moment.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jdkee 7y ago
After this is all over, Amazon needs to be subjected to the full range of antitrust laws and regulations. And broken up.
apazzolini 7y ago
Stop. Buying. Shit. From. Amazon.
- sesuximo 7y ago
  They're the only option for lots of stuff rn
  - apazzolini 7y ago
    They're really not - what's something that you're able to find at Amazon and unable to find at a different online retailer?
jbverschoor 7y ago
If amazon is so shitty, and aws is so expensive compared to others... why on earth do people still pour all their cash in it
- clort 7y ago
  cheap and convenient
- scruple 7y ago
  Where I work, we're basically donating money to the Bezos charity known as AWS at this point. We have so much waste in our multiple AWS accounts. We have people who double things up because they can't/don't/won't communicate (effectively). It's truly an unmanaged disaster. Bring it up to management, they don't seem to care. Even back on the napkin estimates are showing us wasting > 100k a year on unnecessary or outright unused AWS services. They still don't care. And I know we're not alone and that there are other places (even in my immediate geographical area) that have waste well in excess of what we're pissing away.
  - throwaway2048 7y ago
    Its an operational expense, so its a massive tax writeoff
    - triceratops 7y ago
      Avoiding an expense is cheaper than any "tax writeoff" from spending that money instead. (unless we're talking about tax credits or incentive schemes or something like that)
  - 1000units 7y ago
    That's not even one engineer.
  - whoisjuan 7y ago
    That sounds like really bad management. But not only from decision makers bur also from operators. If you’re not using a resource (like unused EC2 instances) why not just turn it off. It sounds like gross incompetence from all the parts.
2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago
This is the part where everyone stops buying from Amazon as a show of solidarity right?
- icelancer 7y ago
  Who is "everyone" here? Some small but significant part of Hacker News?
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  Now would be a great time to do this given the delays of the once-convenient fast shipping times. That said, what are the equal alternatives? I think for most consumers, some things are absolutely required in order to switch away from Amazon: fast shipping, an inventory of hard-to-find items (e.g. car part or furnace element typically found on Amazon), a good refunds/returns system, and a massive crackdown on counterfeit products. That last one is really important to me. Vendors are now filling legit containers of brand name items with fake product, then resealing them as new. This is becoming increasingly common now. I've noticed it with food (Pumpkin seeds, noticed a poor re-seal job), vitamins (a hole in the top seal beneath the cap despite being plastic wrapped), and Clorox bromine tablets for a spa (tablets didn't match store bought version). These products have all been obviously tampered with.
  - icelancer 7y ago
    There's a fairly decent alternative to Amazon for most of the things you listed. It's Wal-Mart and walmart.com. Oh. Not much better from a workers' rights standpoint than Amazon, I guess...
- noisy_boy 7y ago
  Not for show of solidarity but for practical reasons, India has realized the advantages of its vast network of neighbourhood mom-n-pop shops in these times. It is time that people take note of this and start supporting local businesses even if they can cost a bit more. Of course it is understandable to order online due to lack of local availability or very significant price differential on non-trivial purchases but if these small businesses close, then the impact would be great in times like this.
ipsocannibal 7y ago
Tech companies in general and Amazon specifically seem scared to death of unionization. I think Amazon's actions in this matter are going to backfire tremendously.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  ...and anyone who's had to work with a union can understand why.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    You mean like, most of the companies in Europe?
    - mrosett 7y ago
      Europe, which has a per-capita GDP ~1/3 lower than the US.
      - Pfhreak 7y ago
        This didn't pass the smell test, and sure enough Monaco, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Iceland, all have higher per capita GDPs. Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Finland are in the same ballpark or a little lower. Germany and Belgium are lower, but still above 1/3 lower. UK and France are ~1/3 lower. Italy and Spain are ~50% lower.
        aidenn0 7y ago
        2018 numbers I found[1] show the EU as having ~69% the per-capita GDP of US. That's pretty close to 1/3 less. 1: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-per-capita https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-per-capita
        pjc50 7y ago
        The EU includes a lot of less developed countries from former dictatorships, former communist countries, and the former Yugoslavia. There's a lot of catching up which hasn't finished yet. Plus it's mostly missing the US's oil resources. Straight-up GDP comparisons don't tell you so much about quality of life for the average person in the street.
LatteLazy 7y ago
Devils advocate: if you're sent home on full pay and told not to come in, and you come in, that's fireable (doubly so with coronavirus happening). If you do that, you need some strong evidence that it's retaliation. You have away the benefit of the doubt...
- sudosysgen 7y ago
  Except when the only reason you're being told not to come in is to prevent you from organizing a strike.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Except that the employee in this case admits that he was indeed exposed to someone with COVID-19.
    - sudosysgen 7y ago
      The employee admits that he was exposed to someone on March 11th. That's already 17 days ago, so the quarantine would be up.
      - koheripbal 7y ago
        You are assuming he didn't get sick. If he caught covid-19, he could easily be contagious for more than 2 weeks.
    - orestarod 7y ago
      Quarantined 18 days later, and no one else who came in contactvwas quarantined. Say it all.
  - PunchTornado 7y ago
    no, that individual was exposed to someone confirmed positiv with covid-19. one of the workers he worked with. both public and private sources confirmed it to me. if you ask me, that's a pretty dick move for someone. Can't you wait your strike protest after your 14 days of quarantine? just 14 days.
eecc 7y ago
SARS-cov-2 survives days on cardboard. If you can’t give two fcks for the workers, do it for tour own consumers’ ass. Amazon must enforce sanitary and safe working conditions during the COVID19 epidemic lest it becomes itself a source of contagion. More so now that home delivery is so important in the “stay home” strategy. For fcks sake people, how big a stick do you need before you notice?!
- soperj 7y ago
  > SARS-cov-2 survives days on cardboard. It doesn't.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    Yes, it does. In low humidity, room temperature settings, the virus can last for days on a surface.
  - y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
    From https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronavirus-stable-hours-surfaces https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronaviru... > The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. 24 hours is within the time-frame of same-day deliveries at the least. I think OP's point still stands; it's a disease vector.
    - soperj 7y ago
      24 hours isn't days.
      - eecc 7y ago
        Oh there! See that? It’s the point you missed that just flew over your head
        7y ago
elgfare 7y ago
I've been personally boycotting Amazon for years, and very happy with that decision. There are so many stories like this which are more or less egregious.
songshuu 7y ago
Is there a company out there that does full time employment, with benefits, and pays their taxes (no dutch sandwhich/offshoring) in the same space as Amazon? That is, an online megastore, not worrying about AWS/cloud. I think there's more than a few of us who are ready to vote with their dollars.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Costco delivers, and has a better corporate reputation than Amazon and Walmart.
  - catacombs 7y ago
    But how much taxes does it pay? I very skeptical of any company that claims to pay its fair share.
    - missedthecue 7y ago
      Why is it a bad thing if a company has loss carryforwards and R&D credits?
- alistairSH 7y ago
  Walmart?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/tGAlW https://archive.md/tGAlW
WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago
Good, as they should. Amazon is the most productive, value-creating company in decades, and the desire for self-righteous neo-Marxists to demand things outside of their mutually-agreed upon contract and use the media as their mouthpiece disgusts me and any sane person.
alephnan 7y ago
> Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable Because people who can afford Amazon prime and prices are the most vulnerable
- ckdarby 7y ago
  > the most vulnerable Can be elderly. Family members could very well be buying on Amazon & having it shipped to those in their family +70. This is what I would be doing if my parents were older & nobody was able from the family to deliver to them. > Because people who can afford Amazon prime Not everyone has Amazon prime.
- Rebelgecko 7y ago
  I mean, so far yes. I think people with disposable income and those who travel a lot have been early adopters when it comes to getting the virus. Politicians, professional athletes, and rich people seem disproportionately likely to be infected, and I wouldn't be surprised if that imbalance still existed once you accounted for the differences in test availability. ofc that's my North America-centric perception which may change in the coming months
alephnan 7y ago
Would it be illegal for Amazon’s competitors to extend job offers to those who are at risk of being fired for going on strike? (If the fear is being fired as retaliation)
- therealcamino 7y ago
  The aim of the law is to prevent employers from blocking unionization. Your hypothetical might prevent harm to specific individuals who were fired, but it wouldn't achieve the overall goal of protecting the right to organize. Instead it would rid the employer of the organizers, which is what the employer wants.
morelisp 7y ago
Bold how many people here are licking those corona-infected boots.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
goldforever 7y ago
Consequence to every action. He knew the price. Carry on with your lives.
sabujp 7y ago
whatever you believe, all they want is for them to shutdown and clean, how hard is that?
unexaminedlife 7y ago
IANAL, but would be interested to know if it would've BENEFITED their case if they met with a lawyer BEFORE putting their plans into action. It seems this would've been a pretty legitimate way of confirming their intention, and would've put Amazon in a much more compromising position after the fact.

835 points by blago 7y ago

Is the newsworthy claim that this firing was illegally retaliatory? In other words, is the claim that Chris Smalls was being vocal in reporting safety/health issues and was illegally fired as a result?

amazoniancrooks 7y ago
It's the most likely explanation, despite Amazon's obfuscations.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Really? Because the employee admits that he went to work despite being exposed to a covid-19 person, and despite being ordered not to. Those facts are not even in dispute.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    He was exposed 18 days before he was ordered to quarantine. Please do not try to say that there is some factual basis.
    - koheripbal 7y ago
      So? He did not get a covid-19 test, so for all Amazon knows, he's a carrier. There are plenty of lightly-symptomatic people who are ill and contagious for longer than 14 days.
      - fzeroracer 7y ago
        Weird how no one else around him was quarantined. If he was contagious, then why didn't they quarantine everyone he was in contact with as well? Maybe because it was bullshit and retribution on Amazon's part.
        koheripbal 7y ago
        That is what he claims. If you only believe one side of the story - then obviously you'll side with that side.
      - Craighead 7y ago
        Why are you so set on obfuscation?
  - GavinMcG 7y ago
    No one else who was exposed to that person was ordered not to. This employee was singled-out.
  - orestarod 7y ago
    You omitted some facts, like that he was quarantined 18 days after the contact, and no one else who also came in contact was quarantined
  - radcon 7y ago
    You should really take the time to learn all the facts before wrongly blaming the worker.
    - sigzero 7y ago
      Or the company...

ertemplin 7y ago

> Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came on site today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk The employee was exposed to another employee who tested positive for covid-19. They asked him to stay home with pay for 14 days and he came back to the building to protest, putting other employees at risk.

dehrmann 7y ago
If it was actually on-site, yes, Amazon did the right thing. If it was by the street--somewhere any member of the public has free speech--no, but assuming he was exposed to SARS-CoV-2, going out in public is pretty messed up, and pretty hypocritical.
- bpodgursky 7y ago
  It's generally legal to fire employees for "free speech" activities done outside the workplace. More morally hazardous of course, but I don't think anyone would really even challenge the cause here (it's trivially easy to argue that this behavior shows they would endanger workers within the workplace as well).
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    Even in the United States, it's typically illegal to retaliate against employees for organizing: https://www.workplacefairness.org/unions-retaliation https://www.workplacefairness.org/unions-retaliation
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    Except if that free speech is an attempt to organize.
amazoniancrooks 7y ago
That's what Amazon claims anyway. Best to take that with a pinch of salt, given their track record.

earthshot 7y ago

The worker was exposed to covid-19, was told to quarantine, and came back on site anyway. This strikes me as an egregious safety violation and a truly excellent reason to fire the worker.

amazoniancrooks 7y ago
You should know that cheerleading Amazon's continued abuse of employees is not a good look. And "truly excellent reason"? Who even speaks like this anyway? This is someone's livelihood you're talking about.
- RHSeeger 7y ago
  > You should know that cheerleading Amazon's continued abuse of employees is not a good look. That's true, but that doesn't appear to be what happened here. It doesn't appear to be abuse. > This is someone's livelihood you're talking about. And, if I'm understanding it correctly, that person intentionally effectively brought a deadly weapon to the workplace after being told not to. Their response doesn't seem like abuse, it seems within reason, even if maybe there were other, better options.
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    You are not understanding it correctly, because Amazon is trying to make it difficult to do so. The infected person last reported to work on March 11. A two-week period had passed. The striker was the only person ordered to self-quarantine, and he was ordered to do so only after announcing his intention to lead a strike, after any risk of infect had passed.
  - jowsie 7y ago
    > He was exposed on March 11, and Amazon told him to self-quarantine only after he announced plans to strike, MORE than two weeks later.
    - RHSeeger 7y ago

maallooc 7y ago

Thank god they fired them.

BoiledCabbage 7y ago

Here is the key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th. Over the weekened he said he is organizing a strike, so over the weekend they order him and only him into quarantine. A full 18 days after his 5 min exposure. From my reading of it, this almost certainly looks like retaliatory action due to the strike, and a company using the excuse of quarantine to cover it up. Key excerpts from a much clearer article. And yet again, why you never 100% believe a company's PR response when they're trying to cover themselves. They tell just enough truth, but use it to intentionally mislead. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strike-worker-fired-organizing-walkout-chris-smallls https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/31/amazon-strik... > According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March. Had Smalls been exposed that day, a 14-day mandatory quarantine would have made him eligible to return as soon as 25 March. > Smalls said Amazon did not send him home until 28 March, three weeks after the exposure. > “No one else was put on quarantine,” he said, even as the infected person worked alongside “associates for 10-plus hours a week”. > “You put me on quarantine for coming into contact with somebody, but I was around [that person] for less than five minutes,” he told Vice. > According to Amazon, no one else was fired. Smalls said he was considering legal action, calling it “a no-brainer”.

voxic11 7y ago
I think you can be contagious 18 days after exposure, isn't the incubation period around 2 weeks? And we know there are asymptomatic cases so a lack of symptoms after that period doesn't mean he isn't contagious. However if he was indeed the only employee asked to quarantine that is highly suspicious.
- btilly 7y ago
  The incubation period averages 5 days or so. The 2 weeks figure is because we're reasonably confident that if you haven't turned up with symptoms in 2 weeks, you aren't going to.
  - nck4222 7y ago

kitanata 7y ago

This is a union busting, anti-labor and retaliatory firing. It is illegal in the United States. Multiple employees have spoken out about the working conditions at Amazon's warehouse facilities over the last couple of weeks. Common complaints include a lack of protective equipment, sanitization, health monitoring, and working "shoulder to shoulder". Workers are getting sick, and Amazon isn't properly reporting the actual cases of COVID-19 at their facilities. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/amazon-warehouse-employees-grapple-with-coronavirus-risks.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/26/amazon-warehouse-employees-g... Source: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/whole-foods-amazon-instacart-workers-to-strike-over-safety-concerns/ar-BB11VwT1 https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/whole-foods-amazon... Source: https://www.thedailybeast.com/whole-foods-workers-to-strike-after-amazon-instacart-employees-walk-out https://www.thedailybeast.com/whole-foods-workers-to-strike-... Mr. Smalls announced ahead of time that he was going to lead a general strike at his facility in solidarity with the instacart and wholefoods strike on the same day. This was reported in the media. Amazon knew this was being organized and waited to fire the worker until after the planned protest strike occurred. Source: https://apnews.com/cf27e9bec86d846447aad7e632484bea https://apnews.com/cf27e9bec86d846447aad7e632484bea Here is Mr. Smalls talking about this in detail: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/30/staten-island-whole-foods-workers-walk-out-over-coronavirus-concerns.html https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/30/staten-island-whole-fo... - All he was asking for was for the building to be sanitized after a confirmed case of COVID-19 occurred at his facility, at Staten Island near the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States in New York. The attorney general of New York recognized this issue for what it is. --- New York Attorney General Letitia James said late Monday evening that "it is disgraceful that Amazon would terminate an employee who bravely stood up to protect himself and his colleagues." "At the height of a global pandemic, Chris Smalls and his colleagues publicly protested the lack of precautions that Amazon was taking to protect them from COVID-19," she said. "Today, Chris Smalls was fired. In New York, the right to organize is codified into law, and any retaliatory action by management related thereto is strictly prohibited." Source: https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/tech/amazon-worker-fired-staten-island-warehouse/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/tech/amazon-worker-fired-stat... --- Here is another article discussing the actual conditions of Mr. Smalls Facility: --- Despite Amazon’s efforts, Amazon employees at multiple facilities who spoke to CNBC argue that the measures aren’t enough to keep them safe. They say uneven safety precautions at facilities across the country have sown feelings of distrust between workers and their managers. Workers say they’ve become worried that managers aren’t being honest about whether employees are sick with the virus, so that they can keep the facilities open. At some facilities, workers say essential supplies like hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are rationed or there’s none available, putting them at risk of catching the virus. Warehouse workers say they’re forced to choose between going to work and risking their health or staying home and not being able to pay their bills. Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-coronavirus-strike-leader-chris-smalls.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/amazon-fires-staten-island-c... --- Amazon is in the wrong here. They retaliated against Mr. Smalls. This was a labor movement action, and they illegally fired Mr. Smalls for organizing at this facility. These workers aren't asking for more money. They are asking for safe and sanitary working conditions. Are they not entitled to a healthy working environment? Edit: Formatting issues. This was a copy-paste from a comment I made on a /r/business thread on reddit. Formatting on HN is a bit different. :)

booleandilemma 7y ago

Amazon being Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQeGBHxIyHw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQeGBHxIyHw

throwawaymanbot 7y ago

Jeff Bezos has lost any respect I have had for him.

freepor 7y ago

They’ll settle out of court with this guy in 2 years for $10 million but it’s worth it to them to silence him at the present moment.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

jdkee 7y ago

After this is all over, Amazon needs to be subjected to the full range of antitrust laws and regulations. And broken up.

apazzolini 7y ago

Stop. Buying. Shit. From. Amazon.

sesuximo 7y ago
They're the only option for lots of stuff rn
- apazzolini 7y ago
  They're really not - what's something that you're able to find at Amazon and unable to find at a different online retailer?

jbverschoor 7y ago

If amazon is so shitty, and aws is so expensive compared to others... why on earth do people still pour all their cash in it

clort 7y ago
cheap and convenient
scruple 7y ago
Where I work, we're basically donating money to the Bezos charity known as AWS at this point. We have so much waste in our multiple AWS accounts. We have people who double things up because they can't/don't/won't communicate (effectively). It's truly an unmanaged disaster. Bring it up to management, they don't seem to care. Even back on the napkin estimates are showing us wasting > 100k a year on unnecessary or outright unused AWS services. They still don't care. And I know we're not alone and that there are other places (even in my immediate geographical area) that have waste well in excess of what we're pissing away.
- throwaway2048 7y ago
  Its an operational expense, so its a massive tax writeoff
  - triceratops 7y ago
    Avoiding an expense is cheaper than any "tax writeoff" from spending that money instead. (unless we're talking about tax credits or incentive schemes or something like that)
- 1000units 7y ago
  That's not even one engineer.
- whoisjuan 7y ago
  That sounds like really bad management. But not only from decision makers bur also from operators. If you’re not using a resource (like unused EC2 instances) why not just turn it off. It sounds like gross incompetence from all the parts.

2OEH8eoCRo0 7y ago

This is the part where everyone stops buying from Amazon as a show of solidarity right?

icelancer 7y ago
Who is "everyone" here? Some small but significant part of Hacker News?
y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
Now would be a great time to do this given the delays of the once-convenient fast shipping times. That said, what are the equal alternatives? I think for most consumers, some things are absolutely required in order to switch away from Amazon: fast shipping, an inventory of hard-to-find items (e.g. car part or furnace element typically found on Amazon), a good refunds/returns system, and a massive crackdown on counterfeit products. That last one is really important to me. Vendors are now filling legit containers of brand name items with fake product, then resealing them as new. This is becoming increasingly common now. I've noticed it with food (Pumpkin seeds, noticed a poor re-seal job), vitamins (a hole in the top seal beneath the cap despite being plastic wrapped), and Clorox bromine tablets for a spa (tablets didn't match store bought version). These products have all been obviously tampered with.
- icelancer 7y ago
  There's a fairly decent alternative to Amazon for most of the things you listed. It's Wal-Mart and walmart.com. Oh. Not much better from a workers' rights standpoint than Amazon, I guess...
noisy_boy 7y ago
Not for show of solidarity but for practical reasons, India has realized the advantages of its vast network of neighbourhood mom-n-pop shops in these times. It is time that people take note of this and start supporting local businesses even if they can cost a bit more. Of course it is understandable to order online due to lack of local availability or very significant price differential on non-trivial purchases but if these small businesses close, then the impact would be great in times like this.

ipsocannibal 7y ago

Tech companies in general and Amazon specifically seem scared to death of unionization. I think Amazon's actions in this matter are going to backfire tremendously.

koheripbal 7y ago
...and anyone who's had to work with a union can understand why.
- jhayward 7y ago
  You mean like, most of the companies in Europe?
  - mrosett 7y ago
    Europe, which has a per-capita GDP ~1/3 lower than the US.
    - Pfhreak 7y ago
      This didn't pass the smell test, and sure enough Monaco, Norway, Switzerland, Ireland, Iceland, all have higher per capita GDPs. Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Finland are in the same ballpark or a little lower. Germany and Belgium are lower, but still above 1/3 lower. UK and France are ~1/3 lower. Italy and Spain are ~50% lower.
      - aidenn0 7y ago
        2018 numbers I found[1] show the EU as having ~69% the per-capita GDP of US. That's pretty close to 1/3 less. 1: https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-per-capita https://tradingeconomics.com/european-union/gdp-per-capita
        pjc50 7y ago
        The EU includes a lot of less developed countries from former dictatorships, former communist countries, and the former Yugoslavia. There's a lot of catching up which hasn't finished yet. Plus it's mostly missing the US's oil resources. Straight-up GDP comparisons don't tell you so much about quality of life for the average person in the street.

LatteLazy 7y ago

Devils advocate: if you're sent home on full pay and told not to come in, and you come in, that's fireable (doubly so with coronavirus happening). If you do that, you need some strong evidence that it's retaliation. You have away the benefit of the doubt...

sudosysgen 7y ago
Except when the only reason you're being told not to come in is to prevent you from organizing a strike.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Except that the employee in this case admits that he was indeed exposed to someone with COVID-19.
  - sudosysgen 7y ago
    The employee admits that he was exposed to someone on March 11th. That's already 17 days ago, so the quarantine would be up.
    - koheripbal 7y ago
      You are assuming he didn't get sick. If he caught covid-19, he could easily be contagious for more than 2 weeks.
  - orestarod 7y ago
    Quarantined 18 days later, and no one else who came in contactvwas quarantined. Say it all.
- PunchTornado 7y ago
  no, that individual was exposed to someone confirmed positiv with covid-19. one of the workers he worked with. both public and private sources confirmed it to me. if you ask me, that's a pretty dick move for someone. Can't you wait your strike protest after your 14 days of quarantine? just 14 days.

eecc 7y ago

SARS-cov-2 survives days on cardboard. If you can’t give two fcks for the workers, do it for tour own consumers’ ass. Amazon must enforce sanitary and safe working conditions during the COVID19 epidemic lest it becomes itself a source of contagion. More so now that home delivery is so important in the “stay home” strategy. For fcks sake people, how big a stick do you need before you notice?!

soperj 7y ago
> SARS-cov-2 survives days on cardboard. It doesn't.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  Yes, it does. In low humidity, room temperature settings, the virus can last for days on a surface.
- y-c-o-m-b 7y ago
  From https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronavirus-stable-hours-surfaces https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/new-coronaviru... > The scientists found that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) was detectable in aerosols for up to three hours, up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel. 24 hours is within the time-frame of same-day deliveries at the least. I think OP's point still stands; it's a disease vector.
  - soperj 7y ago
    24 hours isn't days.
    - eecc 7y ago
      Oh there! See that? It’s the point you missed that just flew over your head
      - 7y ago

elgfare 7y ago

I've been personally boycotting Amazon for years, and very happy with that decision. There are so many stories like this which are more or less egregious.

songshuu 7y ago

Is there a company out there that does full time employment, with benefits, and pays their taxes (no dutch sandwhich/offshoring) in the same space as Amazon? That is, an online megastore, not worrying about AWS/cloud. I think there's more than a few of us who are ready to vote with their dollars.

Apocryphon 7y ago
Costco delivers, and has a better corporate reputation than Amazon and Walmart.
- catacombs 7y ago
  But how much taxes does it pay? I very skeptical of any company that claims to pay its fair share.
  - missedthecue 7y ago
    Why is it a bad thing if a company has loss carryforwards and R&D credits?
alistairSH 7y ago
Walmart?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/tGAlW https://archive.md/tGAlW

WC3w6pXxgGd 7y ago

Good, as they should. Amazon is the most productive, value-creating company in decades, and the desire for self-righteous neo-Marxists to demand things outside of their mutually-agreed upon contract and use the media as their mouthpiece disgusts me and any sane person.

alephnan 7y ago

> Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable Because people who can afford Amazon prime and prices are the most vulnerable

ckdarby 7y ago
> the most vulnerable Can be elderly. Family members could very well be buying on Amazon & having it shipped to those in their family +70. This is what I would be doing if my parents were older & nobody was able from the family to deliver to them. > Because people who can afford Amazon prime Not everyone has Amazon prime.
Rebelgecko 7y ago
I mean, so far yes. I think people with disposable income and those who travel a lot have been early adopters when it comes to getting the virus. Politicians, professional athletes, and rich people seem disproportionately likely to be infected, and I wouldn't be surprised if that imbalance still existed once you accounted for the differences in test availability. ofc that's my North America-centric perception which may change in the coming months

alephnan 7y ago

Would it be illegal for Amazon’s competitors to extend job offers to those who are at risk of being fired for going on strike? (If the fear is being fired as retaliation)

therealcamino 7y ago
The aim of the law is to prevent employers from blocking unionization. Your hypothetical might prevent harm to specific individuals who were fired, but it wouldn't achieve the overall goal of protecting the right to organize. Instead it would rid the employer of the organizers, which is what the employer wants.

morelisp 7y ago

Bold how many people here are licking those corona-infected boots.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

goldforever 7y ago

Consequence to every action. He knew the price. Carry on with your lives.

sabujp 7y ago

whatever you believe, all they want is for them to shutdown and clean, how hard is that?

unexaminedlife 7y ago

IANAL, but would be interested to know if it would've BENEFITED their case if they met with a lawyer BEFORE putting their plans into action. It seems this would've been a pretty legitimate way of confirming their intention, and would've put Amazon in a much more compromising position after the fact.