Like many people, I was shocked to
wake up on the morning of December 11, 2021 to the news that a tornado hit a
candle factory in Mayfield Kentucky, leaving nine dead in its wake. Later, I heard that the same tornado leveled an
Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, killing six. What really stood out
to me, besides the terrible loss of life, was Both Mayfield Consumer Products
(MCP) and Amazon job sites were in the middle of the night shift, sometimes referred
to as the graveyard shift, when the twister struck at approximately midnight. I have been through a tornado at night, and
they are scary. You cannot see them baring down; you only hear the out of
control train coming for you. Thankfully, I survived that tornado in 2002,
but sadly many workers in Kentucky and Illinois did not. So, why does a candle
factory and a shipping company (Amazon), need a graveyard/night shift anyways?
MCP and Amazon
The collapsed candle factory in Mayfield, Kentucky is owned by Mayfield Consumer
Products, who according to a report by KAM in July,
recently expanded their footprint by renovating an old Remington factory
and upgrading an existing building. The expansions combined were expected to
cost the company $8.3 million and create a total of 72 jobs. The "family
owned" business generates $28.97 million in sales per year, according to dnb.com.
At the time of the
expansion, Ceo Troy Propes, flanked by Gov. Andy Beshear (D), said, “We
are excited about the growth that MCP has been blessed with. It’s a reflection of the dedicated employees
that continue to surpass our customer’s expectations." — Troy Propes via
KAM report
Mr. Propes and his family have such "dedicated
employees " many were told
"they would be fired" if they left as the tornado closed in, perhaps
costing some their lives, the New York Post reports.
The
tornado, which now has the record for the longest run on the ground for a twister,
also hit an Amazon warehouse, killing six, injuring one and forty-five workers
had to be rescued. GO Banking Rates reports that
Amazon is worth $314.97 billion, but this mega-billion-dollar company somehow
needs workers at their facilities late into the night and can-not construct a
safe workplace. Amazon is well known for its problematic
labor practices
at the expense of workers. Shockingly, the
building collapse has sparked an OSHA investigation, according to CNBC.
Why the
Graveyard?
When investigated through the lens of Karl Marx's pivotal
"Das Kapital”, it is easy to recognize that these graveyard shifts are the
very means that enable the two companies to produce such large profits. Known as the relay system, Marx discusses the
phenomenon of multiple shifts during a twenty-four hour day in kapital, Chapter 10, Part
4.
Here he explains because the
means of production (machines, buildings, trucks, websites etc.) have one
purpose alone and that is to create surplus value (profit) they "represent
during the time they lie fallow, a useless advance of capital."
Extending
the work day beyond the limits of the natural day “only acts as a palliative"
for the labor hungry Capitalist, Marx writes. The
long hours lost forever in toil for the workers “quenches
only in a slight degree the vampire thirst for the living blood of labor."
Therefore, to fully quench the Capitalist's desert thirst for
labor so the pencils, paper, computers, ladders, wrenches, electrical, scales,
trucks, gates, lights, guns, badges,
tires and the rest of the job
site (means of production) are not just
sitting around during off time, , the 19th Century philosopher says operating
24 hours a day is "the inherent tendency of capitalist
production." But, Marx quickly
points out there's one big problem for the blood suckers. One person is
physically incapable of working around the clock. However, three workers can
work three shifts in a full day. And
Voila! The shift system was invented to assure any iteration of constant
capital is in motion all the "live long day.". Marx fills many of the following pages with
official government statistics and observations from other economists to
demonstrate the detrimental effect that the relay system had on workers in the
early days of Capitalism
Fast forward to today in the Amazon
and MCP factories, not much has changed. The amount of constant capital in
motion by the hands and minds of the workers during a standard day shift is enormous.
Then, triple that by adding two more shifts. Add in machines and their effect on the workers
and their families, a picture begins to emerge of massive amounts of profit created
at the expense of the workers’ well-being. We should also consider that despite these
massive profits, somehow there is not enough capital to lessen the workload on
employees, construct buildings that can
withstand a tornado, or house the houseless, or feed the kids, or clean up the
rivers, or close prisons, fire the police, or "fill in the blank."
