We need to do more than "honor" our essential workers
This pandemic has exposed a system that has been built on decades of fleecing working people.
This edition was produced with Zach Peterson (@zachprague), who took this picture of the Volynka River in South Bohemia last week on VE Day.
Scroll down for Read Something, Watch Something, Listen to Something, and my Sunday NYT Readalong special #MothersDay Edition w/ guest Pradnya Haldipur (@phaldipur).
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Any other week, a (very) high profile resignation from Amazon like Tim Bray’s (@timbray) would dominate the business news cycle. Last week Bray, now-former VP and Distinguished Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS), published a scathing note on his personal site announcing his resignation and the myriad reasons for it.
Chief among them was the firing of Emily Cunningham (@emhalee), Maren Costa (@marencosta), and other employees who were outspoken about conditions for Amazon workers - especially warehouse workers - during the Covid19 pandemic.
From his note:
But I believe the worker testimony too. And at the end of the day, the big problem isn’t the specifics of Covid-19 response. It’s that Amazon treats the humans in the warehouses as fungible units of pick-and-pack potential. Only that’s not just Amazon, it’s how 21st-century capitalism is done.
Amazon is exceptionally well-managed and has demonstrated great skill at spotting opportunities and building repeatable processes for exploiting them. It has a corresponding lack of vision about the human costs of the relentless growth and accumulation of wealth and power.
Amazon has had an amazing start to the year from a business perspective. Revenue was up 26% in the first quarter of 2020, compared to the same time last year, and the company has proven to be a lifeline in a pandemic.
But there are enormous costs to this convenience, and Amazon workers are in a perpetual struggle to secure better wages and conditions. Last year, several thousand Amazon employees joined the global walkout for climate action and organizing efforts within the company appeared to kick in to high gear.
A few weeks ago, the company fired Christian Smalls, a Staten Island-based warehouse worker who had complained to management about what he felt were unsafe and unsanitary conditions. After organizing a small walkout, Smalls was fired and then disparaged in an internal leadership meeting that was attended by Jeff Bezos, according to Vice news.
Just a few days later, the firings of the climate action leaders came. This thread from Emily Cunningham lays out what happened pretty thoroughly.
These are merely two examples from a long list, and not just from the Covid19 pandemic. The (very) short list: Warehouse safety concerns, legal struggles in France over labor practices, and ongoing crackdowns against even the most minor of organizing efforts.
Amazon aside - and that’s a huge aside - we’ve learned a lot about the modern economy in the first part of 2020. Mainly, that the people and systems we need in the worst of times are remarkably undervalued. This isn’t exactly news, but it’s just blindingly obvious now that store cashiers, warehouse workers, nurses, and all of the people deemed “essential” during this crisis - whether by decree or by societal push - need to be treated to better pay and working conditions, and fewer military flyovers.
This report from The New York Times on women in the Covid19 workforce has some stunning numbers (see more in Data Points below):
Women make up nearly nine out of 10 nurses and nursing assistants, most respiratory therapists, a majority of pharmacists and an overwhelming majority of pharmacy aides and technicians. More than two-thirds of the workers at grocery store checkouts and fast food counters are women.
Cashier and checkout jobs pay $8-12 per hour - far from a living wage. Nurses and other frontline health care workers face great risk, unimaginable stress, and worse. Yet, there is little to no hazard pay, access to health care remains tied to employment, and, as unemployment skyrockets, every job becomes all that much more valuable.
And let’s not forget that many of these jobs were being called “unskilled” just months ago - and now are being called “essential.” If these folks are suddenly so essential, then let us pay them like they deserve. Immigrants, too, are bearing a disproportionate brunt of this disaster.
The only reason we’ve been able to eat, care for our loved ones, and live through this - those of us fortunate enough to do so - is because of the doctors, nurses, and frontline healthcare workers risking their lives, and the logistics, warehouse, and shop workers keeping their doors open.
Call your elected officials. Tell them to skip the next fighter-jet flyover and put the money towards helping the people to whom we owe the most.
- Sree
Data Points
Women are on the frontlines in America, and there’s simply no question about it. Via The New York Times:
Read Something
🏠 The pandemic has certainly bred a level of digital creativity that even I didn’t see coming. Jon Caramanica (@joncaramanica) has a great piece on Instagram Live and how the hip hop community - with D-Nice (@dnice) as a perfect example - has really been at the forefront of turning fantastic analog experiences into community-building digital ones. Read it @ The New York Times.
🌴 What if Lord of the Flies happened in real life, but the marooned school boys survived - and even thrived by some measure - for 15 months, lived off the land, and even nursed one of their own back to health after a broken leg? Rutger Bregman (@rcbregman) recounts just such a story in his forthcoming book…what an excerpt! Read it @ The Guardian.
Watch Something
That President Trump has a unique disregard for the press isn’t exactly a profound statement, but the last months have been something completely different. Beyond the usual lying, misdirection, and outright misinformation, the Covid19 press briefings have featured numerous incidents of outright abuse from the president. How should the press corps handle this? Should they walk out? Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) and Jon Karl (@jonkarl) discussed it on Reliable Sources and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not exactly sure where I stand.
Listen to Something
The new “Rabbit Hole” podcast series from The New York Times is a great look into how the internet is changing our lives. The first part is all about YouTube, and how people can lose themselves - quite literally - in a world of conspiracy theories and much, much worse. Kevin Roose (@kevinroose) knows this beat as well as anyone, and he really delivers. Listen here or on every major podcast platform.
🗞 My Sunday #NYTReadalong, executive produced by Neil Parekh (@neilparekh): Every Sunday I read the print edition of the NYT live. This week, my guest for a special #MothersDay Edition is Pradnya Haldipur (@phaldipur). Pradnya is a mom, philanthropic strategist and executive director at Magic Bus USA. We’ll also be doing a special shout-out to mothers today, with 50% of the proceeds going to Nick Kristof’s C-19 Impact Initiative.
Watch Live at 8:30am ET / 12:30pm GMT / 6pm IST or LATER:
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SAVE THE DATE (May 17): We will be joined by two special guests: Rick Wilson, a #1 NYT Best Selling Author, whose book “Running Against the Devil: A Plot to Save America from Trump--and Democrats from Themselves” came out in January AND Steve Schale, a Florida-based political, communications and government relations strategist.
The Sunday #NYTReadalong is sponsored by Strategy Focused Group and Muck Rack. Interested in sponsorship opportunities? Email sree@sree.net and neil@neilparekh.org.
🎧 NEW! Every Saturday, I host a call-in show on WBAI 99.5FM (@wbai) - "Coping with Covid19" - focused on being helpful, hopeful, and focusing on the pandemic's effects on society’s most vulnerable - workers, the poor, the marginalized - and talk to ordinary citizens & experts on how we can emerge stronger.
Listen live Saturdays from 12-2pm EST, or later. And, of course, call in or tweet questions for us using the #wbaisree hashtag! Listen to an early episode here!
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