Mac McClelland has an interesting article, "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave," over at Mother Jones regarding her stint working in a large online fulfillment facility. And while she uses the pseudonym Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc. for the company, it sure sounds like Amazon.
But what makes it even more interesting is her description of where it is at. While not naming the place specifically, McClelland notes it is "west of the Mississippi," is rural, has an interstate freeway and railroads cutting through it and is about an hour out from the town she was hired in (and most workers commute from, like Reno). Throw in the "Foreclosure Fridays!" attorney billboards and Fernley's Amazon warehouse looks like a pretty good fit.
The thing is, if these allegations are true (and there is always the other side), where were KOLO, KRNV and KTVN or the Reno Gazette-Journal and Reno News & Review? Quite frankly, it sounds like a pretty grim place to work with a lot of former employees more than willing to tell their story. Granted, Mother Jones has a certain political bent to their stories, but wouldn't that be right up the alley for at least the RNR?
It almost makes me think all those ad dollars the temp agencies spend every year for the Christmas hiring rush may be putting a damper on actual news gathering.
Of course, if I'm wrong and McClelland's stint wasn't at the Fernley facility shouldn't her story at least stoke the fires of curiosity at our local news outlets to check it out? There just might be a local story there.
This might be the opportunity your eight-year-old needs to make his first big scoop in the journalism industry!
ReplyDeleteActually I just finished reading the post below this one. I see that your eight-year-old is now a nine-year-old and that he may be busy putting together his picks for the D-League finals.
ReplyDeleteOnce Andre Emmett and Bobby Simmons got called up he informed me it will be a "tough one" for the Reno Bighorns to make the playoffs. He does, though, seem fascinated by the Erie Bayhawks! He actually watched an online game of them against the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants. I told a friend he may have been the only person in America watching that game. Oh, and the visiting Bayhawks won, just like he predicted.
ReplyDeleteLast 2010, Fernley's warehouse went up in flames. I'm glad that they still managed to get back up after the fire. To this day, it’s still a mystery what caused that fire. Have they come to a conclusion as to what caused it?
ReplyDeleteI think it was just a small fire. The workers were back on duty in a few hours. Never saw a followup by media. Saw a rumor where people thought it may have been an employee. But that was just people guessing.
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