Andrew Grossman
A warehouse worker at a Memphis, TN Kroger distribution warehouse died August 25 from working in extreme heat. The worker, Tony Rufus, was sweating profusely and asking for water just before his death. The president of Rufus’s union local has said that the union asked Kroger for heat breaks, but the company denied the request saying they had enough heat-related safety measures in place, citing that the warehouse has fans.
A high work tempo coupled with high temperatures killed Rufus, and the union asking nicely for concessions—from a corporation that exists solely to squeeze as much profit as possible from the sweat of workers—does little to combat this.
Logistics has the third highest rate of worker fatalities, after construction and transportation. Workplace deaths have been rising per capita between 2011 and 2021 in the country, according to statistics by the National Safety Council.
Meanwhile in Italy, 5 railway workers were killed by a runaway train on August 30, and in response the rail unions say maintenance workers will hold a half-day national strike and further strikes in the next week, with a union head saying of the high rate of workplace injuries and deaths that “This massacre has to stop immediately.”
