An Amazon dispatcher pressured a driver to keep delivering packages amid tornado alarms
Dispatcher Amazon in Illinois told a driver to continue to give the package even after the tornado siren warned the incoming dangers. That according to the screen of the screen together this week by Bloomberg who documented the exchanges reportedly occurred last Friday shortly before the tornado hit the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, which leads to structural collapse and six deaths. “Keep driving,” the operator said in a message sent at 19:08 that night. “We can’t call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to do it.”
After being told to “continue to give” the second time about half an hour later, the driver said he wanted to return to his salvation. “If you see radar, the worst storm will be right above me in 30 minutes.” For this, he was told that he would lose his job if he drove back.
“If you decide to return with your package, it will be seen when you reject your route, which will eventually end with you don’t have a job tomorrow morning,” the operator said. “I’m really stuck in this damn van without a safe place to go with a tornado on the ground,” the driver sent back before being told to take refuge in place.
The Amazon policy has caused several incidents where workers are expected to enter even during extreme weather. In September, as a tropical depression Ida caused a broad flood throughout New York City, retailers remained open. In 2017, the driver told Engadget Bryan admitted, then wrote for Gizmodo, they delivered the packages as soon as the Irma storm. The company is also known to keep the facilities open even in extreme heat. As long as the historic heatwave that hit the northwest Pacific last summer, employees must work even as a temperature in one of the company’s facilities close to 90 degrees.
The US occupational safety and health administration is investigating the collapse of the warehouse in Illinois. According to employees who talked to Bloomberg, the facility did not do the exercises before the tornado would prepare it for an emergency.
