John Oliver slams Amazon for failing to protect workers during coronavirus pandemic
"Things need to change and not go back to normal."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6s4Bx7mzNkM
The coronavirus was once again the subject of the latest episode of “Last Week Tonight,” with host John Oliver focusing on Americans who’ve been struggling due to inadequate sick leave policies, insufficient unemployment benefits, and other issues the pandemic has exposed.
Oliver called out numerous companies that are considered “essential” during the pandemic but don’t provide their employees with paid sick leave. In particular, Oliver zeroed in on Amazon, which originally provided two weeks of sick leave for employees who tested positive for COVID-19. Considering the difficulty of receiving a COVID-19 test and the lengthy turnaround time for receiving test results, Oliver called the policy inadequate.
“Testing in New York is so scarce, Amazon’s plan may as well have been, ‘You get double pay and free health care for your whole family if you can guess what number [Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos is thinking,’” Oliver said.
Oliver illustrated his point by playing a clip from former Amazon employee Chris Smalls, who was fired after organizing an employee walkout at an Amazon warehouse in New York City. Amazon released a statement saying that it had fired Smalls for “violating social distancing guidelines.” But a leaked internal memo obtained by Vice showed that Amazon brass held a meeting attended by Bezos at which they developed a PR strategy to portray Smalls, who is Black, as “not smart, or articulate.”
“Holy s***,” Oliver said. “That is so racist I can’t even point out how smart and articulate Smalls is without also sounding racist.”
While Amazon has since changed its policy, Oliver noted that numerous other “essential” companies have not. The host also suggested that when the pandemic fades, the country shouldn’t “go back to normal,” but instead continue to push for workers’ rights and broader health care coverage.
“We need to seriously think on whether having our health insurance system so tied to employment is a good idea. I would argue it emphatically isn’t,” Oliver said. “In fact, while many of the problems we are forced to confront right now weren’t created by the coronavirus, it has thrown a spotlight on some of the biggest flaws on how our system operates.
“Things like paid sick leave and hazard pay are essentially band-aids, and we absolutely need them right now, because we’re bleeding,” Oliver continued. “But when this over, this country is going to need more than band-aids: It’s going to need f****** surgery. Things need to change and not go back to normal.”
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