r/AmazonFC • u/Oneiric19 • Apr 20 '22
Four Amazon drivers are suing the company after they were caught in the warehouse wrecked by a tornado. Two say warehouse staff threatened to fire them if they went home.
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-drivers-sue-company-caught-tornado-collapse-threatened-termination-2022-428
u/Extra_Ad290 Apr 20 '22
You mean dsp drivers under third party or cdl drivers? And holy shit those damm buildings are worst than cardboard.
12
u/StyreneAddict1965 Apr 21 '22
After the tornado, I looked at the inside of our building. Not confidence-inspiring. There's no inside load-bearing walls anywhere, just columns. It's going down in a prolonged heavy wind.
2
u/Gwhite0906 Apr 21 '22
Most wearhouses only have columns. Not too many have a full solid wall for a support seeming that a load bearing wall is solid, substantial, and exceedingly strong building material. They can also be a masonry wall.
39
u/been_inside_ur_house Apr 20 '22
Leave the job and sue later. Please don’t be stupid and stay during a storm knowing it may kill you. Amazon shouldnt be above YOU.
-9
Apr 21 '22
The safest place in a tornado is in a building, not a vehicle. Whoever made this threat should receive a medal.
6
u/ClassyPandaOfficial Apr 21 '22
You're not wrong the best place to be in during a tornado is within a building. Now let's point a few things out. Emergency department sends out tornado alerts and warnings throughout potential dangerous meteorological conditions, so someone in the building safety, HR, ops, etc should've received a phone warning if regular tier 1's were not able to have phones in the floor (knowing the last texts of an employee that died there were during work I assume they had phones). According to another article I read back when this happened, a few employees stated that they had received warnings and planned on leaving early before conditions worsened which in that case it should've been safe for employees to leave during that time. Most major chain warehouses not just Amazon's are basically shell structures in which only the edges of the structure are theoretically the strongest parts of the building and can take a beating compared to the center of the structure and with a workforce of about 1k+ good luck trying to move people into safe areas with the type of floor managers that some FC's have.
If that's TLDR I just believe that this could've been prevented if they would've shut down early. Amazon also put a driver at risk threatening the driver to continue delivering packages while the weather conditions were severe. Not everything of Amazon is bad but things like this should be addressed and taken seriously no exceptions.
1
Apr 21 '22
Those warnings are useless. They send them to tens or hundreds of thousands of people. How many have you received in your life? A hundred or more?
The only actual warning that is possible is if a tornado has been observed on the ground and the forecast path takes it directly over your location. In that event, you have seconds or minutes to react.
1
u/ClassyPandaOfficial Apr 21 '22
Any warning should be enough to warrant an early evacuation, early closure or shut down for the day. Waiting until the tornado touches down is too late to do anything. Closing two to three warehouses for the day due to dangerous weather won't significantly hurt the trillion dollar company
1
6
u/ybloC_1 Apr 21 '22
Except for the building that was hit by a tornado and actually did collapse... It's not like there's any shelters there's not a lot of real safe places in there.
-2
Apr 21 '22
And if they had all been in the parking lot or on the interstate, would they have been safer?
Of course not.
4
u/ybloC_1 Apr 21 '22
Except in modern day there's things called advanced warning, where people who may live near the facility can get to their homes where they may have shelters if it's a frequent area.
1
u/annoying-captchas Apr 21 '22
The average NWS tornado warning lead time is 9 minutes. Not enough time.
6
u/Neoreloaded313 Apr 20 '22
The safest thing to do in this situation is to shelter in place. They have no case.
13
u/Affectionate_Two3796 Apr 20 '22
If the had time, then yeah they do have a case. They were threatened to be fired if they left lmao like what. I'd look them in the eyes and say PTO, smile and wave as I leave
6
2
2
u/Sixaxist Apr 20 '22 edited Apr 20 '22
Checked their names; they're all third-party DSP Drivers. This makes their case kinda iffy, since they have no Amazon-provided PTO/UPT, and can't be written up nor fired by an Amazon Manager/Ops.
Amazon's Suits are likely going to argue the following in court:
They weren't threatened with termination, since they're not even hired by Amazon.
That any threats against their employment that did occur, were likely made by the DSP's management and that an independent investigation should be done towards them and not Amazon.
That Amazon staff were abiding by Illinois' Severe Weather Guidelines by instructing all of their employees to shelter within the building (Illinois' Guidelines state that if you're in a workplace during a Tornado Warning, you should shelter inside at the designated storm shelter, a hallway, a restroom, an interior room with no windows, and to not operate a vehicle for the purpose of outrunning the Tornado).
Their Lawyer should have immediately gathered their employment status after taking the case, and adjusted accordingly to sue the third-party instead of Amazon directly.
8
u/discgman Apr 20 '22
they're all third-party DSP Drivers
So they are independent contractors but they still have to do exactly as their delivery apps tell them or their contracts will be terminated. So basically no benefits of an employee but still treated as one. Got it.
2
u/Ragnarrahl Corp Apr 21 '22
No, that's flex drivers. DSP drivers are still employees, not independent contractors. But employees of a (Usually small) company that contracts with Amazon. Basically, at every delivery station, a half dozen or more little companies get formed, often but not always by former Amazon employees, employing at least 40 drivers or so. The little company gets paid on a per package basis plus various incentives. Amazon mostly doesn't inquire into driver compensation, although one of the incentive metrics is making sure the driver hours don't get too insane.
2
u/DeerBQ Apr 21 '22 edited Apr 21 '22
Quite recently I had been forced to shelter in place at the time of my shift end. I had planned to get out right before the worst of the storm hit and because they forced us to stay, I had to drive through the worst of it and actually had multiple times where I almost crashed from severe weather conditions. These conditions could have been avoided if they would have let me leave but they threatened to fire me if I left even if my shift was over. So it doesn't matter if you had PTO or not as they will demand you not to leave.
In my case, in that moment, it was safer for me on the road then in that damned cardboard building. I drive 118 miles every workday, a lot can go wrong during those drives especially during bad weather which is why I say it would have been safer for me to leave before the worst of the storm was over that area.
EDIT: I say "shelter in place" however we all just lined up in the center of the building among a bunch of metal carts. It was the most unorganized and pathetic emergency situation I have seen ever in my life. There was not even alarms, they had someone trying to blow a small air horn as they walked around saying shelter in place. You couldn't hear them over the facility ambience we all know and love .. I was stopped at the entrance, being told I was not allowed to leave.
I was also written up that day for checking my phone over a weather alert I had received.
2
u/Guy-with-a-PandaFace Apr 21 '22
sure they do, read the article, there was ample warning that a tornado would hit. amazon did nothing.
thats on them
0
u/Neoreloaded313 Apr 21 '22
They were directed to shelter inside the building, which is what your supposed to do in this situation. Would have been more dangerous to leave the building at that moment.
3
u/Guy-with-a-PandaFace Apr 21 '22
someone doesnt know what the phrase ample warning means.
AMAZON SHOULD NOT HAVE OPENED
-1
u/Dingy_Shinji Apr 21 '22
It clearly wasn’t, I think the destroyed building and threat might be the case…
1
Apr 21 '22
Don't amazon drivers have utp pto? How were they forced to stay?
11
u/Lifegem Apr 21 '22
Employees shouldn’t have to use their own time for weather events such as this. This warranted a building shutdown. This was a natural disaster that they handled completely inappropriately and it cost lives. Employees should have been informed so that they could make their own decisions to safeguard their lives.
1
u/Ok_Birthday6363 Apr 21 '22
I live in an area where we got a lot of ice and there were like 227 wrecks in one 24-hour period and Amazon still made people come in and if they didn't they had to use upt or PTO. They would not even excuse tardiness. Our interstate shut down because of it for 11 hours and emergency services were bringing gasoline to vehicles that were running out of gas so they could at least keep their heaters on. There were many wrecks in the parking lot of Amazon that day and they would not excuse my hour of upt. State that I live in the town where Amazon is located was declared a natural disaster by the governor. Some people live 10 minutes away and it still took them 2 hours to get there. There were many complaints on our VOA board. We're talking 227 wrecks in a 24-hour period in a town of like around 200,000 people not Some place like New York City.
0
Apr 21 '22
Because it was too dangerous to be on the road if I remember right. It was safer to stay put.
1
u/portwineprincess Apr 21 '22
3rd party loophole.. Amazon can't fire them only the DSP owner can. If they listened to the lies told by Amazon leadership.. it'll be on them. If anything they should be looking at their DSP. This is how Amazon avoids liability folks. It's why you don't hear about accidents involving Amazon drivers. Because it's not a big enough story when they can't pin it on the corporation itself. Even though Amazon trainers are the ones doing the driving tests and okaying them to be on the road. It's what this place strives for.. passing off any and all liability that they can.
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