Disposable worker

Reflections From An Amazon Warehouse Worker On Prime Day

August 30, 2024 Pola Posen , Left Voice. Educate! Amazon, Disposable worker, Unions, Worker Rights and Jobs

On July 16, fire hydrants were open on every block, and the streets were empty, cleared by the heat wave that swept over New York City that week. Inside the Amazon warehouse where I work, it was just as hot. July 16 and 17 — some of the hottest days recorded on the planet — were also Amazon’s 2024 Prime Days. The brutality of the temperatures was matched by that of the record-breaking profits Amazon made off its workers during the sale, which for customers lasted two days, and for workers, two weeks. Amazon created Prime Day, its own commercial holiday, in 2015. The holiday reflects Amazon’s global ascendency and the increasing centrality of the logistics industry in the United States.

The Movement To End At-Will Employment Is Getting Serious

April 9, 2021 Jeff Schuhrke, In These Times. Organize! Disposable worker, Labor Unions, Worker Rights

On March 31, a group of worker centers, unions, community groups and policy organizations in Illinois officially formed a new coalition, Stable Jobs Now, that aims to dramatically shift the power balance between workers and bosses by eliminating “at-will” employment — the practice that allows employers to fire their employees on a whim. In most of the rest of the world, workers are protected by the “just cause” principle, which says they can only be terminated for legitimate, documented reasons connected to poor job performance. But in the United States, the at-will doctrine allows bosses to arbitrarily fire employees for any reason or no reason whatsoever, with the burden of proving it was an unlawful dismissal placed on the worker.

Coronavirus And The Politics Of Disposability

May 8, 2020 By Shaun Ossei-Owusu, Black Agenda Report. Educate! COVID-19, Disposable worker, Racism, Workers Rights and Jobs

The people whose disposability is on the widest display are those who work in immediate-risk industries. The financially precarious service workers out with the epidemiological wolves so the rest of society can buy groceries. The health care workers plastered on the news, who labor in a profession that tasks minority and women nurses, physician assistants, and technicians with what sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield calls “equity work .” labor that makes health institutions more available to marginalized groups.

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