BIGGEST OPPORTUNITY FOR UNION ORGANIZING SINCE 1897 Lattimer Massacre, Amazon Warehouse deaths, Cargill Meat Packing deaths happened in Hazle Township, PA

"The greatest danger is found in the industrial parks that sit across the city line in Hazle Township. You could drive those roads for an hour, slicing down factory canyons the length of many football fields. About 13,000 worked there, some in union jobs, and that was a source of pride for a lot of people who worked along Wyoming Street."

"Therese Kelly arrived for her shift at an Amazon warehouse in Hazle Township, Pa., on March 27 to find her co-workers standing clustered in the cavernous space. Over a loudspeaker, a manager told them what they had feared: For the first time, an employee had tested positive.

Some of the workers cut short their shifts and went home. Ms. Kelly, 63, got to work.

In the less than two months since then, the warehouse in the foothills of the Pocono Mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania has become Amazon’s biggest hot spot.

 Local lawmakers believe that more than 100 workers have contracted the disease, but the exact number is unknown. At first, Amazon told workers about each new case. But when the total reached about 60, the announcements stopped giving specific numbers.

The best estimate is that more than 900 of the company’s 400,000 blue-collar workers have had the disease. But that number, crowdsourced by Jana Jumpp, an Amazon worker, almost certainly understates the spread.

 The company has been hit by the biggest surge of orders it has ever experienced, and has paid workers extra to stay on the job."

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New York Times
‘Way Too Late’: Inside Amazon’s Biggest Outbreak

A warehouse in the foothills of the Poconos has had more known Covid-19 cases than any of Amazon’s others after missing early opportunities to protect workers.

The Lattimer massacre was the violent deaths of at least 19 unarmed striking immigrant anthracite miners at the Lattimer mine near Hazleton, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 1897.

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattimer_massacre

"The greatest danger is found in the industrial parks that sit across the city line in Hazle Township. You could drive those roads for an hour, slicing down factory canyons the length of many football fields. About 13,000 worked there, some in union jobs, and that was a source of pride for a lot of people who worked along Wyoming Street.

State officials allowed most of these warehouses and factories — American Eagle, Tootsie Roll, AutoZone — to remain open, declaring their products essential for the economy. Each night, workers returned to Hazleton. More than 200 workers at Cargill fell ill, one-fifth of the work force, when the company closed for a week. Other facilities have been hit."

MORE AT:
The New York Times

This Working Man Was Ready to Retire. But the Virus Took Him.

A journey down several blocks of one Pennsylvania city tells the story of the virus in America — of illness, financial strain and rising tension.