Amazon.com gypsies-RV driving workers hopscotch across country for temp jobs

[RamboLiberal]

CAMPBELLSVILLE, Ky. — Amazon.com has what many migrant workers want for the holidays: a job.

Hard-up retirees and unemployed workers with children have converged on this rural town in RVs and campers to spend a few months earning $10 an hour filling orders at an Amazon warehouse.

Amazon offers a free place to park and plug in. When work ends Christmas Eve, the campers pull out.

Many have lost their homes and live on the road, home schooling their children along the way. Others are retirees who had planned to see the country but now work along the way to supplement depleted investments. Those not old enough for Medicare typically lack insurance.

"We are among the economic refugees. We are lucky to earn enough to get our laundry done and eat macaroni and cheese," said April McFail, 52. "I think it says America needs something different. This is supposed to be freedom and a good life. Now it is a sad note."

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-11-26-amazon-temporary-workers_N.htm

[RandomThoughts]

1. The line in a recent posted song is "never where I want to be"

That is the travelers song, or the idea of those that long to travel the seas again.

It is not a bad thing to be on the road, but the various system should not make it tough on those people.

It is possible to be home on the road, home is where the heart is.

[handmade34]

7. "...possible to be home on the road..."

well, possible but not a given... I have been forced to work on the road for the past 5 years and I literally ache for "home"... my heart certainly is not in the hotel rooms I live in. Life situations are varied and it is tough for those of us with little choice.

[RandomThoughts]

8. I guess what I was saying is home is different for different people.

I hope you make it home safe and soon.

And I do agree that the riggers of the road are not always best, but if you can carry your home with you, like a retired couple in an RV, or some that enjoy meeting many new people, then it is something.

I guess it is more that when you are never happy where you are, you keep moving, more about finding joy where ever you are, is probably that song, but many find that while on the road also.


It could also be I think of the road, being far from home in so many things, yet at home at the same time in some fashion, and having to find home where ever I am.

[leveymg]

2. Grapes of Wrath have reemerged.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PilLsvJGgm8/Sw57TI2j4xI/AAAAAAAAAOU/wm4P7uezq5I/s1600/The+Grapes+Of+Wrath+by+John+Steinbeck.jpg

[RamboLiberal]

3. That is what I was thinking - someone needs to write the 21st century

version.

[leveymg]

4. Frontline does this sort of thing well on video. But, you know, people are aware of this . . .

they are just too paralyzed and distracted to do anything about it.

Time for a revolution, or the threat of one, in this country. That was the thing that prompted the New Deal in the 1930s.

[WolverineDG]

15. Hardly. The Joads would have killed for a Winnebago nt

[EmeraldCityGrl]

5. I'll never shop through amazon.com again.

I realize they are providing jobs, but obviously not at a living wage, no benefits, absolute fuckers.
The article said they pay the campsite $18/night for each campsite, likely more than the hourly
wage they pay the workers. Allow this to continue and who needs third world workers, they're right
here in America's heartland. The bar continues to lower and people continue to wiggle under it rather
than take it in their hands and bust these people over the head with it.

[RamboLiberal]

6. They pay them $10 an hour

More than the campsite fee - surprised they even pay for that.

Certainly not a living wage.

[Sal Minella]

14. Around here, $10 an hour is a really good wage.

Not true where you live, apparently.

[shanti]

16. no, it is not

a living wage here in california.

[Posteritatis]

18. The article is set in Kentucky. (nt)

[Lydia Leftcoast]

23. $10 an hour is $1600 a month

Not a living wage in Minneapolis

[Arkansas Granny]

24. It would be a living wage where I live.

[WolverineDG]

20. Damn the fuckers!

Not only did they convince the local park to stay open, the park got funding to update its utilities. Longer season, plus better facilities for *EVERYONE* = more $ in the state coffers.

AND Amazon is looking around at other RV parks in the area to get more of them to stay open so they can hire MORE people. More $ for local businesses.

Damn Amazon to hell! :sarcasm:

dg

[OKNancy]

9. Let's see

Amazon pays campsite rental, water, sewer and electric plus pays $10.00 an hour for people who really need work... and somehow they are the bad guys?

[alphafemale]

12. Because they're not paying them $50 an hour to not work!

They're not buying them a new RV! BASTIDS!! ///sarcasm///

[WolverineDG]

19. No kidding

damn Amazon, giving jobs to people who don't have them! The fuckers.

And damn them to hell for providing a free place for the folks to park their RVs & getting a nearby state park to stay open so that more could be hired (AND paying the $18/day fee for the employees as well). BASTARDS!!!

:sarcasm:

dg

[CanSocDem]

13. Yeh...

....and they're committed to raising the literacy rate of the USA. I don't get it...


.

[EmeraldCityGrl]

21. They must provide that due to the lack of housing in the

area to house the work staff they need. As of Christmas day these folks are on their own.
I'd venture to guess the families with children would prefer to live in a home with a yard
nothing fancy just a basic tract house. How would you like to raise your family in a camper?
You really think that's a choice? These workers are as disposable as the Hispanic workers
standing outside Home Depot willing to take whatever is offered.

As of Christmas Day when our kids are playing with their toys under the tree, visiting friends
and family, these folks are packing up and moving on to the next migrant job. When did
the idea of minimal job security, a living wage, benefits become a foreign concept to you?

If Amazon offered a salary of $15 hr to a reasonable amount of new permanent employees,
people would move there for those jobs. They would rent or buy the foreclosed homes or,
create the need to build new homes. In other words, they would stimulate the growth of
the community. Amazon's disposable employee policy robs the worker, the community
and contributes to the decline of the middle class.

How anyone can think this is OK, that is willing to settle for so little is doomed.

[Arkansas Granny]

25. Like most businesses that hire extra help during the holidays, Amazon will

not have enough jobs, temporary or permanent, to keep these people employed after Christmas.

[RadiationTherapy]

10. I have never seen that spelling of the name "McPhail" before.

I am so cynical and think there are psy-ops going on all the time. *fnord* Anyway, I have the inexplicable urge to express that POVERTY IS NOT FAILURE.

[Posteritatis]

17. Or at least not necessarily failure of the person in that situation

The article says a half-million people are living and working out of RVs, most of them because they can't afford homes, which certainly suggests that something isn't working out the way it ought to be. I'm glad the people in that article have the work there (for awhile at least), especially if they're getting a spot to stay covered over the time, but it still sucks that those sorts of conditions are necessary.

[ck4829]

11. What's it say about the structure of our country when more and more are becoming nomads?

K&R.

[laughingliberal]

22. "I think it says America needs something different..."

Indeed