Boycott Amazon.com?

[EQnoble]

Relevancy? I'll bet a lot of things are different in the offices.

In an industrial area the size of the building it is very easy to knock some hvac ducking and relatively cheap...because of all the people in there I assume they move a plentiful amount of air and have scrubbers inline for health reasons...if they don't they messed up already. Here is where I was going with it and it's supporting logic.

The follow up question about the office I would have asked if they were in fact cooled is...

If they think it's a necessity for a person in the offices at the facility to be in a room at an environmental state that is adequately comfortable considering the location's average temperature range that the locals' bodies are accustom to... then why wouldn't people doing manual labor who are further increasing the feeling of heat by burning calories and increasing btu output wouldn't need it?

If the room is hotter than your core temperature you can't properly transfer heat from your body to the surrounding air...and if it is humid in a closed environment you lose a big amount of ability to cool because your sweat doesn't evaporate well.

It is almost universal that heat causes wear and tear on anything mechanical and that is why we use lubricants on them...however humans are much more complex and delicate than a shrink wrapper or a conveyor belt and there is quite a few more possible points of failure for a human....cooling a building considering how much money they make is peanuts and for that lil cut-corner they are possible shortening peoples lives or reducing the overall quality of life for them in the name of number punching.

This is not related to the work area directly but it has many valid points.
http://www.msha.gov/s&hinfo/heatstress/manual/heatmanual.htm

and now my actual opinion...
If the offices are in fact cooled while the actual labor-force is expected to operate under those temperatures in an enclosed factory it would state to me that they value the people who crunch numbers and stats quite a lot while the people who pick and sort the actual goods are quite replaceable to them so to them they are no different than your lawn mower, if you can't start it, you change a filter, if it still doesn't work you get another one...just another tool. And you know...they just don't make tools like they used to :-/.

I don't say boycott them...I say make them pay the 200,000 or less that it would cost to have a proper air moving system. The state and federal govt should be all over that. They have no problem shutting down any other job site that is deemed unsafe.

 

[Kevin]

... I don't say boycott them...I say make them pay the 200,000 or less that it would cost to have a proper air moving system. The state and federal govt should be all over that. They have no problem shutting down any other job site that is deemed unsafe.

Did you happen to read post #33?

 

[EQnoble]

just did now...

well good then problem solved right?

 

[Digital Jedi]

Bottom line is if your employees are passing out in mass, you should stop that from happening. Kinda just makes sense even from a strictly business sense.

 

[grant sarver]

Bottom line is if your employees are passing out in mass, you should stop that from happening. Kinda just makes sense even from a strictly business sense.

Probably so.

 

[AdamD]

Bottom line is if your employees are passing out in mass, you should stop that from happening. Kinda just makes sense even from a strictly business sense.

Depends on the company, I guess, some only see dollar/pound signs and are happy enough to let people suffer or work in uncomfortable conditions if they keep making a profit
It's a sad world we live in really.

 

[Simon]

Where I live in Italy we have the same problem every year. Luckily, where I work they installed big industrial cooling systems to help with the problem. These fans blow cooled air from outside and doors of the warehouse are always open. It really does work. It will not cool the warehouse factory to 22°c when its 42°c+ outside but they will take away the high humidity and cool to around 27°c inside.

In a large warehouse it is almost impossible to use air conditioning as:

1) It will cost a hell of a lot to run.
2) forklifts, trucks and people are constantly in and out so the doors are always open.
3) Most production sites, factories, warehouse are dusty places and you need clean air not stale air of that from air conditioning.

I am not familiar with US employment law but here in Europe (in Italy) people just go to the doctor if they suffer from the heat (high blood pressure, etc...) and get a doctors certificate for sickness.

In the end, The owner of our company decided that it was cheaper to install the cooling system than paying people to stay at home due to sickness from the heat. (we have around 1000 employees)

I do feel for those people who felt I'll and think many companies should do more to ensure that people are able to work in comfortable environment. In the EU there is Law for the minimum Temperature in workplaces (18°c) but no maximum Temperature as you need to calculate temperature, humidity and how much movement is involved in the job and it's far to complicated to be put into a law. (Well that what they think)

I would of though a big company such as Amazon would treat its workers better!

 

[Digital Jedi]

Depends on the company, I guess, some only see dollar/pound signs and are happy enough to let people suffer or work in uncomfortable conditions if they keep making a profit
It's a sad world we live in really.

That's true, it will depend on the company. However, I've always subscribed to the business sense that this tendency for businesses who take that approach are self-destructive in the long run. It's the mentality of a businessman who wants his company to survive for the long haul vs. one who plans on just burning out whatever company he's working for quick and massive returns, which he'll just do at the next company and the next and the next, for as long he can.

Prime example is the Walt Disney Company. When Walt was running it, his mentality was to put everything he made back into the company, because it didn't do him any good to have it sitting around in a pile somewhere. Flash forward to the same company in the 90s and early 2000s, and you had MBAs and Accountants who wanted quick bucks, as cheaply and efficiently as they could get them. You could see the difference just by comparing the quality of attractions, product, marketing tactics and overall mood of the employees just by contrasting the two, even in context of the different eras.

 

[grant sarver]

When I had a warehouse (small by comparison) We had a sprinkler on the roof and an air conditioner in the dispatch area (cool there and a gradient outward) and when the doors were up there was clear plastic strips hanging in the doorway that you could drive right through.