The Amazon warehouse collapse reminds vee of my own brushes with companies that put their profit over worker safety in such a flagrant manner.

The thing is, from the inside, it's never quite so flagrant. There's never a human being telling you to your face "Yes we're putting you at risk to keep our profits up". It's always a policy, an oversight, a glitch, something that's being worked on.

My first real job was a call center in Florida. I remember when hurricane season hit and we were given a number to call each day before leaving for work to check if the office was open. It always was. Every time.

I remember one particular day we had a predicted hurricane landfall set for my commute hours. I decided not to go; I'd be spending half an hour on the road right when it was projected to hit; no way. I tried to call in, using the automated PBX garbage we were instructed to. It was "down".

I tried to call my manager, couldn't reach him. I eventually called HR directly and was told if I didn't submit my call-in to the PBX I'd be considered a no-show and terminated. When I explained the PBX was down, the rep repeated their statement verbatim. I explained again, they repeated again.

They didn't know (or rather wouldn't tell) who to contact about the PBX being down. They said it was an oversight in process and they'd look into having someone to call for next time.

That's when it kind of clicked for vee, you know? I refused to go in; I got "lucky". The office got closed basically by order from the state. Next time I went in for work, parts of the building were damaged; I got seated next to a blown out window. I got rained on during my shift.

In my next manager meeting I relayed this story to him. He nodded slowly and jumped into an obviously rehearsed speech about "Yes our policy says you must call the PBX to call in. It being down is an oversight. We will consider revising the policy in the coming weeks"

They never did. They didn't because this was all deliberate. Never tell your workers "We're abusing you", but put up velvet ropes so they can't exit the planned path. The planned path being abuse.

It's never flagrant. They never bold-faced tell you. They just wall you in, force you to follow a protocol, and claim any abuse baked in is "a glitch", then never fix it. They blame the slow wheels of business, every time. A fix is coming, once all the stakeholders sync up.

Then people die because with no humane, basic respect for their safety and dignity, they're left with the choice to submit to the abusive system or be victimized "by policy"

I'm not surprised this happened.