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We should apply rigor to both sides. Each has incentive to cherry pick and mislead. > key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th Did t
by Reedx 7y ago
We should apply rigor to both sides. Each has incentive to cherry pick and mislead.
> key point Amazon claims he was exposed to the worker on March 11th
Did they claim that? I'm looking for a source on this. "According to the company’s previous statements, the infected co-worker in question last reported for work on 11 March", but when you look at their linked source[1] it says: "Amazon confirmed an associate, who reported for work on 11 March, has since been diagnosed with Covid-19".
> “No one else was put on quarantine,” he said
Is this confirmed? You can't just assume this to be true. Pretty damning if so, though.
> “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.
Viral transmission has no minimum timeline and often occurs at first point of contact (e.g., handshake) or cough/sneeze at any time. Kind of irresponsible to even print that quote without correcting the argument.
It may be that Amazon retaliated, but stuff like this doesn't prove it. We need the hard facts. At this point it's unclear and sounds fishy on both sides.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/30/amazon-workers-strike-coronavirus https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/mar/30/amazon-wo...
- jonny_eh 7y agoOrdering quarantine 3 weeks after exposure is the the big one.
- boomboomsubban 7y ago>Is this confirmed? You can't just assume this to be true. From Vice >Amazon did not immediately respond to an email Tuesday morning asking how many people at the site have been ordered into self-quarantine Even if they did quarantine others, putting someone on a 14 day quarantine 17 days after contact is hard to explain.
- rumanator 7y ago> Even if they did quarantine others, putting someone on a 14 day quarantine 17 days after contact is hard to explain. It would be harder to explain why Amazon didn't put on quarantine an employee who was vocal about his exposure to the virus. At most it sounds like malevolent compliance.
- pergadad 7y agoNo, at most it sounds like retaliation. They did not follow health guidelines until the person complained and then they still don't follow them but instead claim to follow them. Why just claim? After the 14 day phase the guidelines don't suggest any quarantines unless people show symptoms.
- rumanator 7y ago> No, at most it sounds like retaliation. Full paid leave is not what most people in the US would call retaliation, particularly in the case of a warehouse worker.
- throwaway2048 7y agoThe retaliation part is where they got fired.
- jaywalk 7y agoHe got fired for showing up to work when he was told to stay home.
- sudosysgen 7y agoSo what's your solution then, companies can just tell employees to stay home for no valid when they try to plan a strike or organize, and then fire them if they still try to do so?
- jaywalk 7y agoIt's unclear whether there was "no valid reason" or not in this case. But if they're paying the employee to stay home (like Amazon was in this case) it's hard for me to see a huge problem.
- 7y ago
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago> Even if they did quarantine others, putting someone on a 14 day quarantine 17 days after contact is hard to explain. Not that hard. If everyone in the office had contact with someone infected then the best thing to do would have been to quarantine them all right away. Because without that, you now have the possibility that one of them had an asymptomatic case which they could have still had and given to any of the others less than a week ago, which means the others are still inside the window for being infected but not having either recovered or showed symptoms. Which means they still need to be quarantined.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoWhy are they quarantining people because they may have been in contact with the virus but did not quarantine people they know were in contact with the virus?
- AnthonyMouse 7y agoCould be the usual bureaucratic reasons. Left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Or the left hand is correct and they should all be quarantined and the mistake wasn't sending this guy home, it was not sending the others home too.
- boomboomsubban 7y agoIf these reasons exist, the company put lives at risk for weeks and then fired someone for doing the same thing for one day. Many members of management should have been fired before Monday for this to seem legitimate.
- AnthonyMouse 7y agoNot necessarily. Choosing whether to quarantine people is a judgement call, but going into work after being ordered not to is insubordination and trespass.
- kachnuv_ocasek 7y agoMoreover, Amazon has a long history of unethical and often illegal repression against its workers, so there's that.
- marricks 7y agoStatements like this sound so reasonable but they ignore the massive power imbalance. Amazon is the largest company in the world whose owner has literally bought news papers. Given that power I’m way more likely to believe the workers...
- WC3w6pXxgGd 7y agoOnly the State has power. Otherwise, all interactions between Amazon employees/customers are peaceful.
- sokoloff 7y agoBy what measure is Amazon the largest company in the world? It’s not by market cap, employee count, revenue, earnings, or any other measure I can think of.
- leetcrew 7y agoI'm guessing this was unintentional by GP, but it's probably true that amazon is the largest company in the world where the founder also owns a major newspaper.
- Reedx 7y agoI think we should lean toward the workers, take them seriously and investigate. But it's unwise to go beyond the facts. If claims turn out to be false it'll damage the believability of victims in the future. Being prudent is necessary to have believability tilted in their direction over the long term.
- marricks 7y agoCompletely agree, it's just a tough line sometimes.
- groby_b 7y agoYes, but in the case one side is well known for abusing the other side, the benefit of the doubt goes to the abused. Amazon has an abusive culture. Let's not "both sides" that out of existence, shall we?
- gentleman11 7y agoOne side has a long history of labour abuses however. It would be different if it was Patagonia or Columbia and they had a history of treating people great
- joshuaellinger 7y agoI really hate it when people use he said/she said type arguments to pretend that they are being objective and 'rigorous'. There is a reason that the courts have something called 'burden of proof'. When an individual worker does something a large company doesn't like and they fire him, the burden of proof in my mind is on the company. Because HR has professionals and if they can't tell a better story than what we are seeing, then retaliation is the reason 90% of the time. It isn't unclear. It is perfectly normal for companies to get rid of the whistle blowers. That's why there are (weakly enforced) laws against it.
- _-david-_ 7y ago> Because HR has professionals and if they can't tell a better story than what we are seeing, then retaliation is the reason 90% of the time. There are regulatory / liability reasons which may prevent HR from telling their side of the story. The employee is not under the same rules and can say whatever they want without HR being able to refute it.
- tidepod12 7y agoIt's weird that you mention courts and then in the next sentence say this: >the burden of proof in my mind is on the company Because that is not how the courts operate. It is up to the person making the accusation (which in this case is the employee accusing Amazon of an unjust firing) to provide proof. If you want to start dismissing all "he said/she said" arguments, then we might as well shut down this entire thread. We are never going to get any further than "he said/she said" unless someone in this thread has insider knowledge of this situation and is willing to break privacy agreements.
- colechristensen 7y agoExactly. When taken to court the plaintiff would have an easy time acquiring records of quarantine counts. In that case the "burden of proof" could somewhat be seen as being on Amazon, but really it's the court allowing the accusor to get such proof. (that is, some guy doesn't have to go around and ask everyone he worked with if they were quarantined, Amazon has to give him the information).
- megablast 7y agoYou aren’t being rigorous at all, you are just asking questions and have no idea about the answers.
- samatman 7y agoasking questions when you know the answers is pretty pointless, innit
- lonelappde 7y agoIt's the Socratic method and foundation is of our trial justice system.
- yawaramin 7y agoWell there's a difference between asking questions with the actual intent to find the answers, and asking just in order to 'both sides' a discussion without contributing any new information. The latter is more akin to sealioning, really.
- minimuffins 7y agoWhen a strike leader gets fired over some bullshit like this you really have to be a sap to take the company's side this seriously.
- adamsea 7y agoAmazon has a really good reputation for treating its warehouse employees well so I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one. /s. Obviously, I mean the opposite ; )