The Ignition News Podcast

A Man Died. Amazon Texted Workers to Come In Tomorrow


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A man went to work at Amazon's PDX9 warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon on April 6th. He did not come home.

When he collapsed on the warehouse floor, a coworker with CPR training asked her supervisor if she could help the woman already performing chest compressions. The supervisor told her to turn around, not look, and get back to work. For more than an hour, the conveyor belts kept moving.

Today we are devoting this entire episode to that story. We cover the facility's documented history as the most dangerous Amazon warehouse in the country, the pattern of deaths Amazon has repeatedly characterized as non-work-related, the gutting of the federal agency responsible for preventing exactly these kinds of deaths, and the detail that I cannot get out of my head: the supervisor had tears in her own eyes when she told Sam to look away.

This is not just about Amazon. This is about what happens when an economy decides that some lives are inputs and not people.

Source: The Western Edge, investigative journalist Ryan Haas. Confirmed by Amazon spokesperson to TechCrunch.

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The Ignition News PodcastBy From The Rebel Radio Network