Amazon has recently fired two tech workers after they became whistle blowers about the companies warehouse working conditions. The two workers, Emily Cunningham and Maren Costa, are both members of an Amazon workers advocacy group for climate justice say warehouse workers have insufficient protections at their job sites. Amazon responded swiftly noting that they “support every employees right to criticize their employer but that does not come with blanket immunity”. Amazon says the employees were let go do to repeat violations of internal policies.

Another Amazon warehouse employee was also fired but said they were fired do behavior and violating social distancing guidelines. Then just last month Christian Smalls, a central organizer for protesting against working conditions was also terminated for violating “multiple safety issues”. His termination sparked advocacy groups into actions linking together elected officials who pushed to get him reinstated.

It just seems like Amazon would rather push unruly workers out the door rather than listen to their sentiments and try to resolve some underlying work place conditions. Companies as big as Amazon have so much money under their belt they can give in to some of these small concessions. However, the company was even bold enough to delete emails from the Amazon Employees for Climate Justice group. These emails detailed an online meeting of over 1000 workers that was slated to tackle the current issues Amazon is facing.  Truth is Amazon cares about one thing and it isn’t their employees its their profit margins.

Image: https://www.wsj.com/articles/fired-amazon-warehouse-workers-accuse-company-of-retaliation-which-it-denies-11586891334

Article: https://www.cnet.com/news/amazon-fires-two-tech-workers-who-criticized-warehouse-conditions/

According to a recent article by CNN, Apple, and Google have partnered with authorities to help track exposure to COVID-19 with help from Bluetooth technology. The tech giants announced Friday that they had been working on a platform to enable contact tracing. This would allow officials to identify people who have been exposed to the virus and who they have come in contact with. 

The first interface will be built on existing public health apps and will be released in May. It will be compatible with both iOS and Android devices. In the coming months, a more comprehensive platform will be launched, which users will be able to opt-in. Users who test positive for COVID-19 can input their results into an app from a public health authority, which will be fed into an anonymous “identifier beacon.” The information will then be shared anonymously with anyone who the user potentially came in contact with, who also have the service enabled.  Users are then prompted to upload their identifier records to the cloud, where they will be notified if they were exposed to anyone who tested positive. 

Authorities across the globe have credited contact tracing as one of the critical solutions to prevent the rapid spread of COVID-19.  This has led governments across the world, including Israel, Thailand, and Hong Kong, to utilize technology as a means of tracking exposure and enforcing quarantines. This U.S government has hopped on the bandwagon, turning to Silicon Valley for solutions. This comes after the government announced last month they were considering the use of cellphone location data to help track the spread of COVID-19. In fact, some companies used location tracking technology to track spring breakers who ignored social distancing warnings in Florida. North Dakota went as far as to launch its own platform, created by developers of the Bison tracking app, in hopes of improving the state’s contact tracing efforts. 

Privacy advocates have criticized the use of contact tracing technology out of fear it could be used as a surveillance tool once the pandemic ends. Tech experts have also expressed doubts about the effectiveness of Bluetooth enabled contact tracing. Apple and Google have ensured customers that privacy will be the central focus of their contact tracing efforts. Users will be required to provide explicit consent for the platform to work, and no information that could potentially identify users will be collected. 

A recent article by NPR shed light on a shocking new development in New York’s fight against COVID-19. Last week, drone footage and photos began circulating on social media of what appeared to be a mass grave on New York City’s Hart Island. Hart Island, which is located off the coast of the Bronx, has served as a burial ground for the unidentified or unclaimed dead for over 150 years. 

New York City’s Mayor Bill de Blasio addressed public concerns affirming that while the number of burials on the island has increased, it is not directly associated with overflow due to the death toll of COVID-19. Still, he assured the public that the only people being buried on the island are those who have gone unclaimed. The people buried there are not just victims of COVID-19 but victims of several diseases and fatalities. The unfortunate reality is that the state has experienced more deaths each day than ever before, for many reasons. New York City has had more than 92,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 5,800 deaths. The majority of the state’s fatalities have occurred in New York City. 

A spokesperson for New York’s Department of Correction who oversees the burials shared that burials on Hart Island have increased “five-fold” and have required the addition of two new trenches. According to a memo from the city’s Office of Chief Medical Examiner, city morgues will hold a body for up to 14 days during the pandemic. Mayor de Blasio ensured the public that the city’s morgues have “the ability to deal with even more challenging situations” in terms of death tolls. In fact, the city has already enlisted refrigerated trucks to hold bodies of COVID-19 victims. In the event that temporary burials become necessary, it would be conducted on an individualized basis, so that families could reclaim the remains once the crisis is over. 

Ultimately, there is no way of knowing what the future holds for New York state or the nation as a whole. The uncertainty of the pandemic has led to unprecedented decisions on behalf of government officials and medical professionals on the front lines. At the end of the day, the well being and health of the collective is the priority, and the situation must be handled accordingly.

The president of AT&T John Stankey stated that as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic consumer behavior will be permanently altered.  In his article for CNBC, Kevin Stankiewicz reports that the far-reaching consequences of the pandemic have yet to be fully understood and consumer behavior will inevitably shift as a result according to Stankey.  He also made it clear that these impacts will not just affect companies like AT&T but also nearly every player in the business landscape.  Stankey argued that these unprecedented last few weeks have shown the incredible value of connectivity and the important role it will continue to play in consumers lives going forward.  Services like Zoom, despite coming under fire for privacy issues recently, have demonstrated that technology has the potential to give our lives a sense of business as usual and normalcy despite the circumstances.  Stankey in the same interview also pointed out  that this health crisis has further shown consumers seemingly insatiable desire for more content and stories to engage with.  He states that this will impact the entertainment industry in unforeseen ways in the coming months and years. 

This article for me was eye opening in that it helped me to put in perspective how far reaching the consequences of this pandemic will be in the future.  Nearly every aspect of life has been changed in some way as a result of the virus sweeping across the globe.  It will be interesting to see in the coming weeks as life slowly returns to normal what aspects of life will be changed as a result of COVID-19. 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/01/atts-stankey-consumer-behavior-will-be-changed-from-coronavirus.html