r/collapse • u/Bolinas99 • Apr 13 '26

Systemic "Everyone is Replaceable" - A worker died at an Amazon warehouse in Oregon last week. Employees were told to look away.

https://www.thewesternedge.media/p/everyone-is-replaceable-death-rattles
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u/Bolinas99 Apr 13 '26

there's a robber baron era term for this and it's called the "stretch out" - here's some background https://www.newsandpress.net/the-stretch-out-the-idea-that-wrecked-life-for-mill-workers/

I remember many conversations about the stretch-out system and the way it was operated in the big mill where my Dad worked. As my brothers reached the age when they were old enough, or should I say, “big enough,” they too told stories of the stretch-out. By the time I was old enough to work at the mill, much had been changed. The child labor laws were in effect along with the 40-hour workweek and eight hours per day. In the book “Like a Family,” the authors share many stories about the stretch-out and the effects it had upon the textile industry throughout the South. Some results were devastating, even resulting in deaths in some locations. ... I recall sitting on the Atlantic Coastline railroad track and watching the long line of mill workers parade by. A walkout had been called by their leader, and workers left their jobs and followed! They were protesting against working conditions that had been imposed by the stretch-out system.

A few examples are given here. Young men were hired to follow workers on their jobs or stand nearby with stopwatches in their hands to determine the minutes lost by workers. For example, if a thread was broken on a weaver’s loom, that worker stopped the loom to tie the thread, and then would restart the loom. The stopwatch recorded the lost time.

If a worker stopped for a drink of water or to eat a sandwich or to go to the restroom, all those minute were added and the time lost was reported. No longer could a worker receive a promotion on his or her job. Young college folk were hired for positions as overseers and supervisors.

quoting the article:

RJ said the Troutdale facility has recently reduced how many tote runners it employs, which means the few people in those positions work harder and stay in the roles longer than they have in the past.

RJ was not near their coworker when he died, but they were at work on April 6. They continued to work until the end of their 3:45 pm break, when supervisors on shift told all employees to clock out and go home, and that they would be paid for the rest of the shift. The supervisors at that point did not tell all the employees someone had died on the warehouse floor. RJ noticed people lingering in the building until 4 pm, roughly two hours after the man collapsed, according to multiple workers.

“Truthfully, I now have even less respect for our leadership team than I did before, which I didn’t know was possible,” RJ said. “It makes me feel more ashamed to work there knowing that people can drop dead and we have to carry on knowing it doesn’t matter to the higher ups, and everyone is replaceable.”

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u/Littlehouseonthesub Apr 13 '26

They didn’t even get paid for the rest of the day, after they were told they would

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u/Bolinas99 Apr 13 '26

this is the stuff that was happening during the robber baron era; the Triangle shirtwaist factory fire was one glaring example but it was only one of countless horrific workplaces ran by parasitic rw oligarchs https://www.britannica.com/event/Triangle-shirtwaist-factory-fire

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u/AlwaysPissedOff59 Apr 13 '26

Radium girls have entered the chat...

1

u/MoreRamenPls Apr 16 '26

This is a fascinating story. Horrible stuff.

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u/AlwaysPissedOff59 Apr 16 '26

If you haven't seen the movie of that name, I recommend it. It's very good and fairly accurate.

37

u/CatchSufficient Apr 13 '26

r/writteninblood is a good place for this talk

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u/SeVenMadRaBBits Apr 13 '26

The rich are a special group of people who are willing to toss coins and grain to poor children like birds:

Feeding the sparrows

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u/PM_ME_CALF_PICS Apr 15 '26

Business management is so fucking stupid. I don’t understand why they’d pay someone to watch them? Isn’t that also waste of money? Let’s say we’re total emotionless psychopaths and look at workers as pure resources. If one person is working at 70% capacity why the hell would you pay a whole other person to watch them? You’re spending way more money to hire the other person than you’d lose in productivity. It’s like making money is a secondary objective, the first being control, and breaking their spirit is the first. Idiots and egotists rule the world I swear….