#The ruling class amazon full#

There were also work release prisoners working in the factory under the guard of a deputy who was killed in the collapse.įor its part, Amazon refused to cancel the shift in Edwardsville. Workers were slaving away for as little as $8 an hour on 10-12 hour shifts with mandatory overtime. When the tornado hit, it leveled the Kentucky candle factory, trapping dozens of workers under the rubble and leaving eight dead. After the warning, they had us go back to work. “The first warning came, and they just had us go in the hallway. We should have been able to leave,” Saxton explained. Their response, “Yes.” According to Johnson, a roll call was taken to determine if anyone had left.įorklift operator Mark Saxton, 37, confirmed to NBC News that workers were not given the option to go home but sent back to the line after the first tornado warning. “Even with weather like this, you’re still going to fire me?” 20-year-old worker Evan Johnson asked a manager.

Workers at the Mayfield plant report that management had threatened to fire anyone who left to seek shelter after multiple tornado warnings were issued for the area. Production could not be halted for a single shift to ensure everyone’s safety, lest it cut into the corporate bottom line.

#The ruling class amazon full#

Hours of advanced storm warnings were dismissed by plant managers at the Amazon fulfillment center in Edwardsville, Illinois and the Mayfield Consumer Products candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky so they could keep holiday production running full bore with Christmas just two weeks away.

In scenes reminiscent of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire disaster more than a century ago–in which 146 garment workers in New York City were killed because exit doors were locked–workers report that they were trapped in their factories by management as the storms bore down on them. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP) Right: Amazon fulfillment center struck by a tornado, seen Saturday, December 11, 2021, in Edwardsville, Illinois. Left: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos arrives at the Baby2Baby Gala at the Pacific Design Center on Saturday, November 13, 2021, in West Hollywood, California. Homes were blown away like little more than pieces of paper as families desperately sheltered in their bathrooms and factories crumpled with workers still inside.

The death toll is expected to rise beyond 100 as recovery workers sift through the hundreds of miles of rubble and the critically injured succumb to their wounds. The deadliest December tornado outbreak in US history has killed at least 88 people, including children, with many more still missing. The outbreak of tornadoes which ripped through the central United States Friday night into Saturday morning, leaving a path of death and destruction which stretches from Arkansas through Kentucky, has exposed the reality of brutal sweatshop conditions in the heart of America and the naked indifference of the ruling elite to workers' lives. “Amazon won’t let us leave” - The final text message sent by Larry Virden to his partner of 13 years, Cherie Jones, before he and five of his coworkers were killed Friday night when a tornado destroyed Amazon’s fulfillment center in Edwardsville, Illinois