Amazon faces complaints, scrutiny over factory working conditions

I never felt like passing out in a warehouse and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one. They can do that because there aren’t any jobs in the area.
Former Amazon factory worker Elmer Goris • Complaining about the conditions at the Allentown, Pa. Amazon warehouse facility, which handles East Coast orders. The problem? It was really freaking hot this summer, and the factory didn’t have air conditioning, turning the working conditions somewhat nightmarish. People reportedly fainted from heat exhaustion. In the wake of the lengthy Morning Call article that brought the allegations to light, Amazon appears to have put up a job posting for on-support medical staff, and now plans to install an air conditioner in the plant. In their defense, average temperatures throughout the year are reasonably cool, so the situation this summer was somewhat unexpected. Still, though. source

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1 FBI investigation into the Church of Scientology’s Sea Org labor rules source

» That new-time religion: The Church of Scientology, in addition to dealing with last year’s high-profile defector, high-profile director Paul Haggis, now must survive the fruit of Haggis’ labor with New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright; a 26-page tale of his ascent and subsequent rejection of the church. Amongst the familiar charges the article makes (secrecy, strident and at times brutally violent discipline by church leader David Miscavige, disconnected families, and an inscrutable origin story that Scientologists are forbidden to admit exists), it also reveals that the FBI has been investigating Scientology for almost a year regarding potential rights abuses in their elite “Sea Organization,” or “Sea Org.” They’re looking into defector allegations of forced manual labor, shockingly low pay, and “re-education” through rehabilitation camps, which it goes without saying are at best creepy ideas, at worst wicked ones.

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The weird fascination of these shows must lie partly in the fact that such confrontations with material reality have become exotically unfamiliar. Many of us do work that feels more surreal than real.
Matthew B. Crawford • In a lengthy essay on the evolution of American society from blue-collar to white-collar, adapted from his book “Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work.” As a result, we’ll watch TV shows such as “Dirty Jobs” with reverence because it’s become more adventurous since the average person doesn’t do that kind of work anymore. Part of this Crawford blames on the decline of manual labor education such as shop class and the increase in office jobs. • source

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20 Sep 2011 21:00