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Hi,
In September, Billy Foister had a heart attack at work and collapsed. In any other workplace, he would have gotten immediate medical attention. But Billy Foister worked at an Amazon warehouse, and instead he laid on the floor for 20 minutes and eventually died.1
His co-workers were told to get back to work immediately.
That this could happen at all is terrifying, but what’s even more insidious is why: because Amazon places more importance on automated productivity quotas than the value of human life.
Tell Amazon to stop abusing workers with automated productivity quotas.
For consumers, Amazon is pretty convenient, but that click-and-ship ease comes at a steep cost. The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health named Amazon warehouses as one of the most dangerous jobs in the country2 for the second year in a row.
Why? Because Amazon’s warehouse are staffed by people, but run and managed by algorithms that demand faster and faster packing and shipping, and punish workers for taking breaks and using the restroom. For Amazon, human life is not as important as profit and speed.
Managing warehouses by predictive modeling isn’t just cold and impersonal, it’s deadly. Under this system, Amazon warehouse workers have to push themselves to the brink at all times, just to keep their jobs. Sometimes this causes workers like Billy Foister to go into cardiac arrest while on the job. In other reports, workers who can’t meet the data driven demands have attempted suicide.3
No amount of next-day or same-day shipping is worth the human cost that Amazon demands of their warehouse workers. That’s why, as consumers, our voices are particularly important. We can push back against Amazon, just like tech workers and warehouse workers all across the country are doing, and demand more humane working conditioning.
Tell Amazon: Stop abusing workers with automated productivity quotas.
Thanks for taking action,
Tihi and the team at Demand Progress
Sources:
1. Guardian, “'Go back to work': outcry over deaths on Amazon's warehouse floor,” October 17, 2019.
2. Futurism, “After Deaths, Amazon Lands on List of Most Dangerous Employers,” October 18, 2019.
3. National Council of Occupational Safety and Health, “The Dirty Dozen 2019: Employers Who Put Workers and Communities at Risk,” April, 2019.
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