Cori Bush to Amazon: “Shut Up and Work” Is Not a Climate Disaster Plan

A new bill would set workers’ health ahead of the bald guy’s space fetish.

Tom Williams/ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

When Amazon wouldn’t let a team of warehouse workers pause their shifts in a deadly storm, the results were predictable—and it wasn’t the first time. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) wants to make it the last.

Bush, a House freshman whose district stretches across the St. Louis area, is introducing a climate-focused worker protection bill motivated by a December tornado that killed two constituents. They were among six workers killed in the collapse of an Illinois Amazon warehouse where, according to a lawsuit filed by one of their families, managers told employees they would be fired if they fled. Investigators with the Occupational Health and Safety Administration found other issues with the facility and its tornado plan, but didn’t find the company liable for the deaths, nor impose any kind of penalty. There’s no federal law or regulation that meant the warehouse had to close, or that the company couldn’t fire staff who left to find shelter. Bush’s bill would make a dent in that, guaranteeing workers job protection and paid emergency leave during a wide range of climate disasters.

Amazon facilities’ serious injury rate is 40 percent higher than an average American warehouse. (Its contract drivers also get hurt and die disproportionately often.) Current and former employees have criticized the company’s handling of workers’ compensation claims, many characterizing the process as a runaround or alleging retaliation after filing injury claims. The legislation, titled the Worker Safety in Climate Disasters Act, bars employers from firing workers who walk off during life-threatening climate events.

The tornadoes that prompted the bill were part of a storm system that swept the Midwest last year. Its 90 victims included both the six Illinois Amazon workers and another eight at a Kentucky factory run by a different company. As tornado sirens rang out, and despite the weak protection both buildings offered, all were allegedly told they’d be fired if they didn’t keep working. An OSHA investigation of the Amazon warehouse identified multiple risk factors, but found no legal violations and imposed no penalty.

Bush’s bill guarantees two weeks’ paid leave for those unable to work in the wake of a climate disaster, whether injured, forced to relocate, facing school closures, or caring for relatives who have been affected. Employers would be penalized for refusing to pay staff who left or missed work in a disaster.

Any climate-related event with potential for great loss of life would meet the bill’s criteria, including earthquakes, floods, heat waves, hurricanes, severe blizzards, tornadoes, tsunamis, utility failures, and wildfires. It fines violators under the Fair Labor Standards Act, applying the existing penalty for wage theft: a $10,000 fine, small change even to a corporation a fraction Amazon’s size.

That might not seem like a big deterrent—it isn’t—but guaranteed pay protections, together with some legal accountability, could save the lives and incomes of millions of Americans. As I’ve reported, the climate crisis is making many of our jobs deadlier, across all kinds of industries, and agencies like OSHA have been largely denied (or stripped of) the powers that would let them protect workers from its most dangerous consequences. 

Amazon, in particular, has a documented history of throwing workers in Mother Nature’s way for tiny gains to its bottom line. In 2018, two of its employees were killed in Baltimore when a tornado collapsed a warehouse wall. Workers had to drive to and work at its New York City facilities as tropical depression Ida took 14 lives, sparking large protests. Less than a month ago, a New Jersey Amazon worker died in a heat wave while racing to fulfill its Prime Day rush. (Amazon blamed a “personal medical condition” and passed out water and snacks.)

“Currently there are no protections that support job security,” Bush told the Intercept, “nor paid time off due to missed work because of a climate disaster.” Her new bill, she said, would ensure that as climate disasters become more and more frequent, workers’ safety is not impeded by their bosses.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate