I have a friend who calls it ‘Boy Trash,’ putting it in the same category as Point Break, The Rock, Face/Off, and the spiritual successor to Heat, The Town, all of which offer a basic plot, lots of action, and usually a smattering of Men’s Mental Health to make it feel like you haven’t just been watching two men run around shooting fake guns at each other for three hours. I think Heat is too good to be associated with the word ‘trash’ in any way, but if I relent and play the game then Heat is surely the alpha and omega of ‘Boy Trash,’ a divine dreamscape for any man who is tired of the world asking him to have patience and coherent emotions.

I was reminded of this when I found myself watching it (again) for a sold-out anniversary screening in central London. Sure enough, just like every other time I’ve watched it, each male character manages to fuck over his female love interest in some way or another with his own stupid, kamikaze compulsions. Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) mumbles: “The sun rises and sets with her, man,” about his beautiful wife Charlene (Ashley Judd), but still destroys her life through anger, gambling, and crime regardless. Even as Trejo (Danny Trejo) lays dying he chokes out the words, “My Anna’s gone, gone.” But she’s only gone, brutally slain in the room next door, because he refuses to stop getting involved in crazy heists.

The arc of Donald Breedan (Dennis Heybert) summarizes the doomed romanticism and inevitable catastrophe of Heat better than any other in the film, despite him playing a relatively miniscule part in its plot. Freshly released from prison, Donald is subjected to a degrading life of parole, finding himself at the whims of a horrible boss at a local cafe, who steals his pay and treats him like shit. 

Yet through it all, his partner Lillian (Kim Staunton) is there supporting him, driving him to work, telling him how proud she is that he’s trying to turn his life around, loving him through the fug of downtrodden self doubt he is engulfed by.

“In the world of Heat, there are no stars, only city lights, which twinkle on indifferently in the background of every scene, like a distant father the men in the film can’t stop trying to impress”

Then Neil McCauley catches Donald unawares at work and asks him to be his getaway driver. He thinks ‘Fuck it, why not,’ beats up his boss, and heads off to get shot dead by the police. He is the quintessential male character in Heat, and maybe in all ‘Boy Trash’ movies: tragically compelled to throw it all away in an instant because consciously or not he has sworn to live by the film’s immortal maxim, as so memorably incanted by Michael Cheritto (Tom Sizemore): “The action is the juice.”

Cheritto himself has a wife, kids, and investments, but when faced with the prospect of one more bank robbery with the lads, he just can’t resist. In the world of Heat, there are no stars, only city lights, which twinkle on indifferently in the background of every scene, like a distant father the men in the film can’t stop trying to impress. There are no lofty aspirations beyond the perfume cloud of the here and now. Nothing to aspire to except the chance to live forever in one boundless moment where you act first and don’t think about the consequences, because standing still is a great way to realize that existence is too absurd and painful to bear.

Again: The action is the juice.

As a certified millennial navel gazer, I can’t help but relate to footsoldiers like Donald, Chris, and Michael. They might feel like they are raging against forces beyond their control, but really it’s just themselves. And rather than change course, their reaction is to plough their lives headfirst into the nearest wall. In reality, there is a lot of love on the table for these men, and there is much that they can actually control. They all have jobs, roles to play, friends, lovers, and at least a modicum of self determination. But they just don’t care, because they know best, even if knowing best means believing you’re the worst. 

Is this behavior mindful, considerate, or in any way conducive to long-term happiness? No. Like nearly all of the men in the film, they die violently and without ceremony, leaving behind them a trail of grief and ruin. But this is what makes Heat so great. The fact that it doesn’t try to sermonize. Not really. It is, after all, a three-hour action movie. At some point, the moral lesson has to stand aside. Instead, it leans into the adrenalizing, verboten joys of living in a way that is both selfish and self destructive. Diving deep into the various written tributes published this week, acknowledgement of this seemed lacking. Yet there is a reason why Heat has been calling a certain type of man towards it like a siren song for the last three decades.

The reason is the action, and the action is the juice. 

If you could summarize the mindset that McCauley and Hanna share, you might quote one of the former’s key lines: “I am alone. I am not lonely.” The two main characters’ all-consuming death drives eventually lead them to the only true moment of psychic connection they experience in the film: when McCauley is bleeding out with one of Hanna’s bullets lodged in his chest.

“I had to take the emotional quotient to that exact moment when McCauley is dying, and he’s fortunate enough to die with somebody [Hanna] he’s that close to, the only person on the planet that has the same kind of mindset he has,” explained Michael Mann ten years ago, in an interview with Rolling Stone to mark Heat‘s last decadal birthday. “But at the same time, he’s also the person who shot him, and that duality is not a contradiction—they’re both true.”

Whether you call it Bushido, the Art of War, or just the warrior’s code, men love an abstract set of moral and behavioral guidelines that draw them together and sanctify their mutual annihilation. In Heat, nothing else matters to McCauley and Hanna except their shared obsession, which takes over completely to the point that everything else—love, happiness, reason—falls by the wayside. It’s a hair’s breadth from being intensely romantic, like a gothic novel. Wuthering Heights with guns. Jane Eyre for the fellas. 

“Being self absorbed, reckless, and borderline insane usually does end badly”

The two characters blur the lines between protagonist and antagonist. By the end, you’re not really sure which is which. McCauley is a dangerous recidivist, willing to kill civilians and abuse women for his goals. He lives by the other big rule from Heat: “Don’t let yourself get attached to anything you are not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner.” Yet you root for him. Hanna is trying to prevent crime and capture the bad guys, yet his determination is disconcerting and hard to cheer for. He’s on his third marriage, constantly coked up, and so neglectful of his wife and step-daughter that she attempts suicide. When he and his adversary sit down for a chat over a coffee, in a scene widely lauded as one of the finest in modern cinema, it’s like two old friends with a toxic addiction problem gearing up to spur it on for what they know will be the last time.

And that’s kind of the point. No one wins. Being self absorbed, reckless, and borderline insane usually does end badly. But it’s still impossible not to idolize the heroes of Heat as they soar and thrust forward into their beloved moments, bursting out the other side of those moments like clenched firsts through the same brown paper bag, the beautiful, exhilarating moments that they live and ultimately die for, ill-fated men of action who go out on their swords and in great suits. 

In a turgid millennial world, with its eight-hour screen times and miserly way with volition, you’re largely given two choices: accept whatever shit comes your way or ineffectually complain about it. Frustrated, the latter often becomes something else, then misdirected: ire aimed at the wrong people, the ones closest to us. We lash out and fuck ourselves over then refuse to take responsibility, which just wants to make us lash out even more. We’re stuck in an endless, impotent loop, so what’s the answer? 

Maybe it’s recalibrating the way we think about the world. Realizing that the end result—a singing balance sheet, a property portfolio, a racehorse, a yacht, or a trophy partner—isn’t really the thing to aim for at all, and that actually, it’s the aiming itself that’s the whole point. Maybe it’s as simple as getting out and doing something. Putting on a gray three-piece suit, a hockey mask, or some 1990s sunglasses. Learning about complex metals, yearning, or smashing up a TV. Going out and having a life, even if it kills you.

Because if the action really is the juice, who cares how it ends?

Follow Tom Usher on Instagram @_tomusher

The post ‘The Action Is the Juice’: Why Self-Destructive Men Love ‘Heat’ appeared first on VICE.

A heat dome occurs when a dome of high pressure moves in. That pressure in the atmosphere acts like a lid, trapping hot air and pushing it toward the Earth’s surface, The New York Times explained. 

In response to forecasted triple-digit temperatures, the National Weather Service issued a heat advisory that runs through the evening of May 16.

On May 15, temperatures could reach up to 104 degrees along the Rio Grande. It could get up to four degrees hotter the following day in the same area. Heat indexes, meanwhile, could exceed 111 degrees.

Those temperatures could set records in cities including Houston, San Antonio, and Austin.

NBC News reported that the forecasted temperatures are significantly higher than some areas in the Sahara Desert. In that part of the world, temperatures are only expected to reach the low 90s in some areas.

Relief isn’t coming anytime soon, either. In a post to X, the NWS wrote that “record hot high temps for this time of year continue into next week.”

It went on to advised Texans “to stay hydrated, limit strenuous outdoor activities in the afternoons and in the sun, and keep a close watch for signs and symptoms of heat-related illness.”

A separate post noted that, since it’s only May, “many will not be acclimated to this type of heat so early within the year and thus the risk for heat related illness is higher than normal.”

It’s Very, Very Hot in texas

The NWS even called the ongoing heat “one of the hottest May heat waves of all time,” according to the Times.

Orlando Bermúdez, a NWS forecaster, told the outlet that an average high in the area this time of year is 87 degrees. Given that, Bermúdez called the current heat wave “rare.”

As for why the heat is hitting early this year, climate change may be a culprit. The phenomena can’t easily be tied to individual weather events. However, the world has only been getting hotter in recent years.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that 2024 was the hottest year on record. Additionally, the NOAA noted that the planet’s 10 warmest years since 1850 have all occurred in the past decade. 

The post Some Cities in Texas Are Literally Hotter Than the Sahara appeared first on VICE.

Festivals struggled in the lead-up to, and over, the Victorian long weekend as they told attendees to reconsider travel or leave bushfire risk areas early. Large portions of the state are experiencing exceptionally high temperatures close to 40 degrees, and organisers of Pitch made the move on Saturday morning, after the Country Fire Authority (CFA) forecasted an extreme fire danger rating, to advise “the safest option for those who are already on site is to leave the site tonight or early in the morning.” 

“If you are arriving on Saturday,” said a statement, “we recommend delaying your arrival until further notice.”

Buses into the festival were also shut down, with some artists announcing on social media that their set had been cancelled. But Pitch organisers confirmed later that afternoon the festival would continue with its music programming from 6PM after consulting with the CFA, Victoria Police and other members of the Emergency Management teams. 

“At the time of writing, there are no active fires in the region and we wish to reassure you that those who are on site have access to ample shade, cooling misting fans, food and water,” said a statement on social media.

“We are diligently following the guidance of relevant authorities to prioritise the safety of our community and have a full team of emergency services including medical, police and on-site fire response who are on call throughout the event.”

In the early hours of Sunday morning a 23-year-old man was airlifted to hospital in a critical condition before being pronounced dead. The cause of his death is still to be determined. Paramedics were also called to two other incidents involving a male in his 20s and a male in his 30s. Both were taken to hospital in stable condition.

In a statement following the death, organisers wrote that they were “deeply saddened” by the tragedy, and were “devastated that this occurred at an event where community has been a driving force over the last seven years.”

The remainder of the festival was cancelled on Sunday after the CFA declared a second total fire ban for the area.

The death, a suspected overdose, led Victorian Greens drug harm reduction spokesperson Aiv Puglielli to call once again for regulated pill testing across the state.

“Even with pure MDMA we’ve seen how extreme heat can deal a deadly blow,” they said. “So with untested drugs circulating, this was truly a disaster waiting to happen.” 

Many ticket holders and loved ones of attendees have criticised the organisers over mixed messaging on social media and for asking attendees to follow CFA advice by reconsidering travel to the festival but allowing the festival’s programming to continue. Many have called for refunds and reparations over the cancellation.

Pitch festival attendee Jonathan Seagar told 3AW’s Tom Elliott said the event was “very chaotic to say the least.”

“The water and the cooling systems and ice were pretty scarce around the camp sites, but in the events section of the festival there was help and water available. But the problem really lied in the campsite, it was far away from all of that, a 10-20 minute walk for some people in extreme heat.”

Melbourne’s 70th Moomba Parade was also cancelled due to extreme weather, which organisers have said was a “very difficult decision”. 

“Unlike other Moomba events where there’s good access to shade, water and cooling measures, parade participants are required to spend several hours outdoors in hot, heavy costumes – putting them at greater risk,” they said.

Several other festivals like Golden Plains in Meredith continued despite the weather.

Temperatures are expected to remain hot in northern districts of Victoria until Wednesday and Thursday when the heat is predicted to slowly drop down to the March average.

Adele is the Junior Writer & Producer for VICE AU/NZ. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter here.

See more from Australia Today on vice.com and on TikTok.

The post A 23-Year-Old Man Has Died After a Chaotic Weekend of Cancelled Festivals and Extreme Heat appeared first on VICE.

The mass death of these rare river dolphins has underscored concerns about the effects of human-driven climate change, which is exacerbating all types of extreme weather events across the world. Scientists at the Mamirauá Institute, a local research center supported by the Brazilian government, said that more research would be needed to isolate the exact culprits behind the dolphin deaths, especially because an emerging El Niño weather pattern could be a factor.

“It’s still early to determine the cause of this extreme event but according to our experts, it is certainly connected to the drought period and high temperatures in Lake Tefé, in which some points are exceeding 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit),” the institute said in a statement to CNN.

The dieoff of the river dolphins occurred in Lake Tefé, a part of the upper Brazilian Amazon that has experienced sweltering temperatures that are about 10° Fahrenheit hotter than average for this time of year. Locals and researchers in the area have also reported that thousands of fish have died during the drought due to a scarcity of oxygen in the freshwater system. 

About 80 percent of the deceased dolphins are “boto,” a species of pink dolphins, while the remainder belong to a gray species called “tucuxi.” These animals have adapted to the freshwater ecosystems of the Amazon, which confines them to a relatively limited habitat that renders them particularly vulnerable to extreme heat. However, mass die-offs of whales and other wide-ranging oceanic species are also occurring in many other regions of the world; many of those events may be linked to climate change.

The Tefé region is suffering due to an anomalous lack of rainfall in recent weeks, which have lowered the depths of some rivers and lakes by an astonishing three meters, or nine feet, compared to average levels at this time of year. 

“The past month in Tefé has seemed like a science-fiction climate-change scenario,” Daniel Tregidgo, a British researcher in the area, told The Guardian. “Regular sightings of pink river dolphins are one of the great privileges of living in the heart of the Amazon. Pretty much every time I go to the market to have breakfast I see them come to the surface and it reminds me why I live here.

“To know that one has died is sad, but to see piles of carcasses, knowing that this drought has killed over 100, is a tragedy,” he added.

The post The Amazon Is Getting So Hot That Dolphins Are Dying En Masse appeared first on VICE.

This summer, temperatures are running above 30 degrees every day and show no sign of dropping. And it doesn’t look like summers will get cooler in the coming years, as climate change, heat waves and droughts are becoming the new normal. But how do we get through this sweaty agony with a bit of dignity? 

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To find out, I spoke to people who work in extremely hot conditions to ask them how they feel about being in the heat all the time and if they have any hot tips on how to keep cool while the earth is burning.

“My tips for hot days: Wear sweatbands and bandanas.”

Rob Kleijer, 36, mascot manager: It helps that I love the heat because being a mascot on hot days feels like being in a sauna. If I’m lucky, I only have to wear a breezy suit on a hot day. But sometimes, I have to put on a costume lined and padded with warm materials to create certain shapes. 

The brown bear is one of these outfits. Yet, I have to wear it whenever it’s requested, even on a hot day. The client is king in the end, and by now I can tolerate it just fine – I’ve been walking around in suits like these for years. 

My tips for hot days: Wear sweatbands and bandanas. I always do that under my mask, otherwise my sweat drips into my eyes. I also recommend drinking a lot of water and having a cup of broth or a handful of crisps every now and then to maintain your salt supply. 

When it’s hot, what helps me most is interacting with people. Customers especially care about me during heat waves – I get asked about it a thousand times. Too bad I can’t answer, mascots can’t speak!

“I’m used to the heat – I’ve been hanging around 175-degree fryers since I was 12.”

Ruud Vleugels, 49, works in a fries truck: The heat inside the fries truck depends on how the sun is shining. If the sun shines in the front, it gets stinking hot inside. That’s why I try to park the truck strategically. Not only for myself, but also for the food. 

After all, making sure the food doesn’t get too hot is more important than keeping myself cool. Actually, the heat doesn’t affect me that much. I’m used to it – I’ve been hanging around 175-degree fryers since I was 12 because my parents were also in this business. It’s in my blood. I sometimes say: Frying oil runs through my veins. 

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The only thing I sometimes do to stay cool is turn on the fan. Other than that, I would say: Put on a swimsuit – even at home. I can’t do that in the fries truck, unfortunately; it would look a bit weird. Eating an ice cream wouldn’t hurt either. But don’t eat too many, that’s not healthy. 

Because of my disorganised lifestyle and the many frikandels [a processed sausage popular in the North of France, Belgium and the Netherlands] I used to eat here and there, I had become overweight. Since I stopped eating these snacks, I’ve lost 45 kilos. It also makes a difference when it’s hot, I must say.

“The heat is really one of my favourite things. It can’t be hot enough for me.” 

Jareth Geluk, 31, sauna plumber: Our saunas are 85 degrees, but it feels hotter in there because of humidity. At first, I couldn’t always stand it. The first time I worked in a sauna, I said, after five minutes, ‘Guys, I’m good. I’m going out.’ But I persevered, perhaps because someone had told me to just hang on. 

Today, I can work on six installations in a row. My body has adapted. I sweat quickly and easily. I don’t even mind the cold anymore, but the heat is really one of my favourite things. It can’t be hot enough for me. 

My tip for hot days: Stay hydrated. Also, sweating causes you to lose certain substances, such as magnesium and calcium, so it’s good to consume isotonic drinks. And try to dress to preserve your temperature. Many people think, “Shirt off!” But then your skin is in direct contact with the heat and you get hotter. That’s why we wear shirts when we are plumbing, and during contests we even wear a suit. It looks warm, but when it’s really hot around you, it has a cooling effect. 

“If it’s 35 degrees outside, I don’t think, ‘Yay! I’m going into an even warmer greenhouse!’”

Koos de Vries, 64, cucumber farmer: If you can’t stand the heat, things can get tough as a cucumber farmer. Because if you work above the plants [in a greenhouse], it can easily get to 40 degrees on hot days. I don’t do anything special to stay cool; I just wear a t-shirt and shorts. 

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During winter, I actually love the greenhouse. But if it’s 35 degrees outside, I don’t think, ‘Yay! I’m going into an even warmer greenhouse!’ 

I don’t really like the heat. I don’t go on holiday to hot countries either. I already spend enough time feeling hot. 

My most important tip in the business and in general: Don’t feel sorry for yourself. If you start telling yourself all the time, “Why is it so hot?”, you won’t be able to stand it. So if you want to get through it decently, just get on with it.

The post Tips to Cope with Heat, from People Who Work Very Hot Jobs appeared first on VICE.

“Air conditioning is coming to UPS, and Teamster members in these vehicles will get the relief and protection they’ve been fighting for,” said Teamsters general president Sean O’Brien in a statement. “The union’s entire national committee and our rank-and-filers should be commended for staying in this fight and making their priorities known to this company.”

The tentative agreement includes contract language that would require UPS to add in-cab air conditioning systems in all large delivery trucks, small sprinter vans, and all of the company’s “most recognizable brown package cars” purchased after next January 1, according to a press release. 

Motherboard has previously extensively reported on the dangers UPS drivers face from heat, which can reach temperatures of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit inside their trucks. Last summer, a UPS driver in California died in his truck, seemingly from heatstroke. A worker Motherboard spoke to later that summer was diagnosed with heat syncope after working in the heat, and was referred to a neurologist. Because drivers are generally required to turn off their vehicles at every stop, to avoid wasting gas and polluting the air, UPS previously told Motherboard that air conditioning would be ineffective. Instead, it provided drivers with a “Cool Solutions” training program for how to deal with heat, which encouraged them to drink water and eat watermelon. 

The press release also states that the tentative agreement would also require that two fans be installed in the driver cab of all package cars, which drivers have been requesting for some time. Motherboard previously reported that workers were allowed to request fan installations, but were in some cases denied access to them. 

One worker previously told Motherboard that it took two years to get UPS to install a fan inside their van, but that it practically did nothing. “We finally get these fans and it’s just one little fan all the way in the left hand corner on the dashboard, pointing at your left elbow,” they said at the time. Another worker said that their warehouse had put in requests for fans amid last summer’s heat wave, but that they were “on back-order.” 

The tentative agreement further says that all newer non-electric UPS vehicles would have exhaust heat shields installed, and that already-purchased package cars would be retrofitted to have air induction vents in the back of the trucks to prevent extreme temperatures from building up, according to the release. Multiple UPS drivers previously told Motherboard that going into the back of the van felt like walking into an “oven.”

“We have reached an agreement on heat safety with the Teamsters, which includes new measures that build on important actions rolled out to UPS employees in the spring, including new cooling gear and enhanced training,” a UPS spokesperson told Motherboard. “We care deeply about our people, and their safety remains our top priority. Heat safety is no exception.”

Bargaining for the Teamsters’ national contract with UPS continues in Virginia. Their current contract with UPS expires on August 31, and the union has said it will call a strike of its over 340,000 UPS members if no agreement is reached. It has been holding a strike authorization vote over the past two weeks, for which results will be announced on June 16. 

“Glad @UPS finally came to their senses & agreed to a solution regarding heat & safety,” O’Brien wrote in a tweet after the announcement. “Lot of big ticket items left to handle.”

Update: This story has been updated with comment from UPS.

The post Teamsters Get a Major Win for UPS Drivers: Air Conditioning appeared first on VICE.

The drivers will be working their way up to $30 an hour, paid holidays, and their employer must have “just cause” to discipline or fire them, a step toward no longer being overworked by unachievable performance requirements. The ratification also confirmed the Teamsters’ first direct bargaining contact within Amazon’s vast web of workers, something the union has been working towards for some time. 

The contract also includes provisions that prevent workers from being disciplined solely by information collected by in-truck surveillance equipment, language designed to protect their physical safety and that requires their employer to provide them vehicles in “safe operating condition.”

To its credit, the owner of the DSP, Battle-Tested Strategies (BTS), voluntarily recognized the union and signed the collective bargaining agreement almost immediately.

The problem? Amazon did not. It said that because the drivers were contracted by BTS, Amazon was not their employer, and therefore would not have to come to the bargaining table. 

The union’s next step is proving that wrong. Amazon, it says, is a joint employer of the drivers, and in full control of the conditions that caused them to organize—low pay, unsafe heat conditions, and extreme performance requirements—despite the fact that it places those responsibilities on the DSP.

“After engaging in bargaining, engaging in information requests, engaging in understanding of the relationship between Amazon and the DSP—Amazon has complete control,” said Randy Korgan, the director of the Teamsters’ Amazon Division and director of organizing for Teamsters Joint Council 42. 

The union contract is specifically for the relationship between the drivers and the DSP. However, Korgan said, “There’s language in the contract that obviously drives at the subject that Amazon’s in control.” 

One example Korgan referenced specifically was the issue of pay. Before drivers organized, they were paid $19.75 per hour, which they say was not enough to sustain them comfortably. The DSP is located in Palmdale, California, about an hour from Los Angeles. Palmdale has a cost of living about 30 percent higher than the national average. 

“With inflation and everything else, it’s hard to make a living,” said Rajpal Singh, a delivery driver and union organizer at BTS. “I have a family I need to feed. There are some weeks I need to sit there and wonder if I’m going to have nutritious food for my kids. I have to play ‘Which bill am I going to pay this week?’ It’s hard to even start a savings or go on a family vacation, or to even make do with the things that are necessities.” 

Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards said that the DSP was responsible for setting wages. 

A spokesperson for BTS said that Amazon set regional minimums for what DSPs could pay their drivers, and that the regional minimum for this delivery station was $19.75. Because Amazon pays DSPs and often requires them to work only with Amazon, the company plays a huge role in what types of wages are sustainable for a DSP to pay. 

The contract states that, effective Sept. 1, drivers will be paid $30 per hour. “The DSP owner believed at this particular moment that that would be fair,” said Korgan. If the DSP owner couldn’t afford to pay that wage, the contract allows him time to contact Amazon and ask for assistance. 

“Amazon creates a very narrow bandwidth for those DSPs to operate,” he continued. “Even though they would like to pay closer to an industry standard, and they would like to not have the turnover and be able to hire somebody, Amazon purposefully has this very narrow bandwidth.” 

The contract also directly addresses unsafe heat levels, and how that might impact drivers. It states, “The Company shall abide by the State of California Heat Illness Prevention Standard,” and that it will grant workers any additional breaks afforded to them by that standard. 

“The vans we have—it’s a big metal container. In the extreme heat it can get upwards of 130, 135 degrees inside the van,” said Singh. “You walk in, and it’s sweltering, the wave of heat that hits you—the only comparison I can give you is like walking into an oven, because it’s that nasty dry heat. You feel like you’re just getting cooked back there. I go through 10-12 bottles of water a day, and I urinate once.” 

“Last summer, there were a couple of times I was getting dizzy, and started seeing spots, feeling like I was going to black out,” he continued. “When you’re in here and you get those feelings like you’re gonna pass out at any moment—I’m worried, am I going to make it home, make it through this day? Am I going to end up being hospitalized?” 

A critical line in the contract addresses this, stating, “The Company shall not require employees to complete deliveries that jeopardize their safety.” Korgan explained that, specifically in relation to heat, this allows a driver to return from their route early if they feel sick or unable to handle the temperature. It also prevents the company—in this case, the DSP, but Amazon by extension—from punishing a worker for not finishing their route due to unsafe levels of heat, or other unsafe conditions. If the company does so, workers are afforded the right to file a grievance. 

Heath Lopez, another driver and organizer, said that numerous Amazon-branded vans at the delivery station had broken air conditioning systems. 

“The majority of our vans don’t have working air conditioning units, and when it gets unbearably hot during the day, the AC does not feel like it even cools down the heat a little bit,” Lopez said.”I would have to press my face up against it just to feel the cold air.”

Hards, the Amazon spokesperson, said that the DSP leased its vehicles from a third party, and was solely responsible for van maintenance.

Jonathon Ervin, the owner of BTS, said that it was true that Amazon placed all responsibility for repairs on the DSP. But, he continued, Amazon’s selected step van vendor, Amerit Fleet Solutions, was the only company approved to make inspections or repairs on half of the vans—meaning that getting on the waitlist for a repair or towing the van to a repair site took much more time, because of the limited availability one company can have. He said that sometimes, too, the air conditioning was irreparable. The other half were Mercedes vans, which could easily get taken for repairs but would need to be paid for out-of-pocket and could take months or weeks to complete, he said—making any progress on the air conditioning systems had been nearly impossible. 

“They put the liability on me, but I have to use their process,” he said. “They assign me these vans, and they make me go through the process that they’ve created to get the maintenance complete—and most of the time, it doesn’t work well enough to prevent me from spending money on a repair.”

“If you have a vehicle, then there should be a process to make sure that it’s functioning correctly, and that is dealt with in the collective agreement as well,” Korgan said. “Unfortunately, it appears as if Amazon, again, has control over these vehicles and how they get handed out. Amazon will say, ‘Well, that’s the contractor’s responsibility.’ But what we’re finding is that the contractor is limited as to where they can get their vendor usage. If you’re completely controlling the vendors, and then you’re telling the contractor it’s their responsibility, and the vendor is controlled by Amazon, then who’s repairing it, really? I think you can read between the lines of what’s happening to the contractor.”

The contract addresses this by allowing workers to refuse to drive a vehicle that has non-functional air conditioning: “The Company shall not require employees to drive any vehicle that is not in safe operating condition…It shall not be a violation of this agreement when employees refuse to operate such equipment unless such refusal is unjustified.” Until that vehicle is fixed, it will not be used. 

Lopez also said the workload that Amazon expects of its delivery drivers was unreasonable given their time limit. Amazon is responsible for designing the routes and setting time constraints for performance—the DSP then distributes the routes to its available drivers each day. 

“Amazon determines where we deliver, how many packages we deliver, and when we deliver them,” said Ervin. “They control everything in a big algorithm. Now, we do have the ability to give a route to somebody else—but that route, how big it is and where it is, we do not control.”

The routes are eight hours long, and drivers get roughly 200 stops with around 300 packages, according to Lopez. Incorporating the hour’s worth of break time that drivers are usually afforded, that means they would have to deliver to one stop every two minutes. Things get harder if the routes are more spread thin, Lopez said, because the drivers would have to spend more time on the road going between groups of stops instead of delivering in a consolidated area. Routes get more difficult to complete if drivers have to deal with extreme heat conditions, or if they decide to use the restroom or take their breaks, which docks the amount of time they have to deliver.

“Half of the stuff that happens on the road is out of our control,” he said. “All we’re asking Amazon is that we want better working conditions and reasonable deadlines.” 

The contract does not have specific language regarding Amazon’s performance requirements, Korgan said. However, it does have language that allows drivers to take all breaks afforded to them by law, and that they cannot be punished for doing so: “The Company shall not issue an infraction if a driver departs from their route to take their rest or meal period or to use the restroom, drink water, or otherwise care for their health and well-being.” Korgan said that this, in addition to the grievance procedure, would allow workers to fight back against any disciplinary action they could receive for not being “productive” enough. 

“We don’t want to see them have to put the package before their health, and the language does address it,” he said.

Amazon spokesperson Hards said that the company does not retaliate against the DSP’s drivers for coming back early or not finishing a route.

Korgan also pointed out that the contract was drawn up without a no-strike clause—meaning that the drivers have a right to strike, one of the most powerful actions a union can take.

The contract between the Teamsters and the DSP provides the first protections this powerful for any Amazon driver in the U.S. But they may not last long. On April 14, around a week before the union went public on April 24, Amazon had moved to terminate the DSP’s contract. Hards said in a statement on behalf of Amazon when the unionization was announced that, “This group does not work for Amazon,” and that it “had been notified of its termination for poor performance well before [the April 24] announcement.” 

Both the Teamsters and the DSP’s owner, Jonathan Ervin, say this was retaliatory conduct for unionization. 

“One day in 2021, we had 93 routes, 100 vans on the road. We delivered over 20,000 packages. In one day,” Ervin said. “We’re very proud of our record, so I will not allow Amazon to rewrite the narrative, [and say] that we weren’t top performers, and they didn’t trust our drivers to do the best that they could do.” 

The Teamsters filed an unfair labor practice charge (ULP) against Amazon last week, alleging that retaliatory conduct against drivers, as well as outright refusing to bargain, were blatant violations of labor law. 

“Under any standard applied by the Board, there is no question that Amazon is a single and/or joint employer with BTS,” the charge reads. “This means it is patently unlawful for Amazon to rid itself of these newly unionized employees—and to thus chill similarly situated employees at DAX8 [the delivery station] and across the country who might themselves wish to organize—by chopping off this troubled appendage and terminating its contract with BTS.” 

Hards said that the drivers will continue to deliver packages through June 24—this is due to the WARN Act, which in certain cases requires employers to give workers at least 60 days’ notice before firing them. 

When asked whether Amazon considered itself a joint employer of the workers, Hards said that the company was still working through some details, but that it had not recognized the union because, traditionally, union negotiations happen within a business, so this negotiation was between the DSP owner and his workers.

“The DSP truly appears to be concerned about the safety and the working conditions of their drivers,” Korgan said. “They’re just fed up. Every DSP operator I have talked to is exasperated.”

The post Amazon Delivery Drivers Unionized. Now They Have to Prove They Work For Amazon appeared first on VICE.

On the same day, workers marched on Amazon’s management offices at the warehouse to demand that the company respect their right to unionize. This is the first time the Teamsters have successfully organized an Amazon-related facility.

The group of 84 delivery drivers in Palmdale, California work at Amazon’s DAX8 delivery station. They’re not Amazon employees, but rather employees of an Amazon Delivery Service Partner (DSP) called Battle-Tested Strategies. The delivery company, not Amazon, is responsible for dispatching and planning routes for drivers—but it dispatches out of DAX8 and delivers Amazon-branded packages, often with Amazon-branded trucks or vans. 

This is a significant development in the unionization effort across Amazon, one of the biggest employers in the country, because its large network of DSPs is how it’s able to deliver packages so quickly. 

“We want fair pay and safe jobs, to be able to provide food for our families,” said Rajpal Singh, one driver in Palmdale, in the press release. “We want to know we will make it home to our families at night after delivering Amazon packages in the extreme heat. We organized with the Teamsters to change our working conditions for the better.”

The Teamsters union is responsible for organizing UPS, one of the biggest package delivery companies in the country. UPS drivers also faced extreme heat conditions last summer, which the union responded to. 

The drivers have joined Teamsters Local 396 and won “neutrality and voluntary union recognition,” the press release states. The local union organizing officials have negotiated a tentative agreement with the DSP, which members will vote on in the upcoming weeks. The agreement proposes “immediate pay increases, substantial hourly raises in the fall, provisions that hold Amazon accountable on health and safety standards, a grievance procedure, and other benefits.”  

“We deliver in an Amazon van, wearing an Amazon uniform, but when we petition Amazon, they ignore us. We have a mass of support, we are a union, and now they need to listen,” Singh said. 

“Amazon delivery drivers at DAX8 have made history by organizing their union with Teamsters Local 396 to demand dignity and respect at work,” said Victor Mineros, the secretary-treasurer of the local. “I commend these workers for their courage to take on this greedy multibillion-dollar corporation. We are confident this will lead other Amazon workers nationwide to organize with the Teamsters.”

 “Whether the Teamsters are being intentionally misleading or they just don’t understand our business, the narrative they’re spreading is false,” Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards told Motherboard. “This group does not work for Amazon. Our delivery network is made up of thousands of independently owned and operated small businesses who provide delivery services for our company. This particular third party company had a track record of failing to perform and had been notified of its termination for poor performance well before today’s announcement. This situation is more about an outside company trying to distract from their history of failing to meet their obligations.” 

The Teamsters organize UPS and DHL, two massive U.S. delivery companies, as well as workers in warehousing, trucking, and construction jobs. Currently, the union is in the throes of bargaining a contract renewal with UPS, as the current contract is set to expire on July 31. Workers are gearing up for a strike, Teamsters officials have been posting on social media. 

The Teamsters also recently opened an Amazon division, which is responsible for overseeing unionization efforts at Amazon and preventing the company from getting a bigger foothold in rural communities. In one town on Long Island, New York, Teamsters organizing helped prevent Amazon from building a warehouse that would destroy a community’s only access to greenspace. The union says it intends to improve pay and working conditions in Amazon to match the industry standard, as Amazon’s injury rate has frequently been reported to be double the industry rate. Motherboard has previously extensively reported on the dangerous conditions both warehouse workers and drivers have to endure. 

“We will be victorious in this fight,” Teamsters president Sean O’Brien wrote on Twitter. “Teamsters set the standard and are just getting bigger, faster and stronger.”

Battle-Tested Strategies did not respond to a request for comment. 

Update: This story has been updated with comment from Amazon.

The post A Group of Amazon Drivers Just Joined One of the Biggest Unions in the US appeared first on VICE.

Dunaj and his supervisor hopped into the truck to run his first route.

“Obviously, my first time on the road, I was extremely nervous,” Dunaj said. “The whole day [my supervisor] is just sitting there with his face buried in his phone. He’s ‘rush, rush, hurry, hurry, hurry.’ And this whole time, I’m just drenched in sweat.”

Sweating in southwest Florida in August? Not surprising. But the heat soon began to get to Dunaj. By the time he finished his route, he said, his foot was cramped so badly that he couldn’t hit the brake. He asked his supervisor if he could go home.

“I started getting real dizzy, and I started driving,” Dunaj said. “I made it probably not even a mile, and I just started vomiting on myself. I came to a light and opened my door and then vomited outside some more. I mean, at that point, I thought about going off to the side and just calling an ambulance. But I thought, ‘I only live 10 minutes from here. Let’s try.’”

“It was a very long 10 minutes,” he continued. ”When I got home, I didn’t say a word. I walked in the door, my wife looked at me, and she said I was white as a ghost.”

Dunaj crawled to the bathroom and threw up until he had nothing left. “When I tried to stand up, my hamstrings would lock up and cramp up,” he said. “And then my hands turned into claws, my biceps, my deltoids, even my eyelids. [My wife] kept trying to bring me water. But every time I would take a sip, I would throw up.”

“My head was throbbing so bad from the dehydration,” he said. “But I still had to call in the next day.”

Dunaj’s story is extreme, but the struggles he faces aren’t new. In late June, a UPS driver from Arizona named Esteban Chavez died seemingly from heatstroke after being passed out in his truck for 20 minutes. It was the day after his 24th birthday. UPS drivers have been suffering from long exposure to heat during the summer for years, but the company only recently began to get public criticism for it. Drivers at the end of July were sharing temperature readings of over 120 degrees Fahrenheit inside their trucks. A video on Twitter in late July of a UPS driver collapsing on somebody’s front porch while delivering a package sparked outrage and concern.

Motherboard spoke to eight workers from UPS locations around the country, who said they had experienced extreme heat at work. Motherboard agreed to keep some of the workers anonymous because they feared retaliation.

A second worker from Florida was doing their route normally in early August, drinking water, when they started to slow down due to the heat, they told Motherboard.

“My body started feeling some chills,” they recalled. “My leg was cold, my body was hot. It was really uncomfortable.”

They called in to their manager, who told them to go find some shade to wait in until another driver could take their route. When they returned the truck to the facility, they said, “it was very uncomfortable to drive. I threw up as soon as I got out.”

The driver said they were given prescription pills by their primary doctor and two days off work to recover, and went back to work the next week. “But I wasn’t good,” they said. “Every day when I was waking up, I was waking up super tired.” On another day that next week, the symptoms started again. Because the weather changed to a cool rain, they were able to finish the route, but they still felt sick.

“It was something wrong with my head,” they said. They went to the emergency room after that day, where they were diagnosed with work-related heat syncope. They were referred to a neurologist, and have yet to go to the appointment, according to documentation provided to Motherboard.

To some extent, anyone who is delivering packages is going to be exposed to the elements, and the job necessitates carrying heavy or unwieldy items from the back of a truck to people’s houses all day. The unofficial motto often attributed to the United States Postal Service, for example, is “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” Motherboard has written extensively about how Amazon drivers have had to pee in plastic bottles, have faced racism and threats on the job, and are subjected to often dangerous route planning.

UPS said at the time of Chavez’s death, and has continued to reiterate, that it would be “ineffective” to put air conditioning in the trucks. In an earlier statement to Motherboard, a spokesperson wrote that because the vehicle stops around 130 times a day on average, air conditioning would not be useful.

“We have studied heat mitigation with our vehicles and integrated forced air systems with venting to create air flow around the driver and cargo areas,” they continued. “We optimize the roof of vehicles to minimize heat in the cargo area, alongside insulating the roof of the cab. We also offer fans to drivers upon request.”

Drivers say the back of the truck has no air movement at all.

“When you pop that bulkhead door to get in the back to get your packages out, our trucks are all metal, so it’s literally an oven, a hot box,” Dunaj said. “Going back there and trying to find a package—if it’s not right there, literally after ten, 15 seconds, you start to panic because it’s so hot. But you have to keep digging until you find it. And there’s no way to get any air circulation back there.”

Dunaj said even just air movement would help mitigate the heat. “They could put a giant fan in the back of a truck, so there’s air circulation,” he said.

The fans offered by UPS are a part of the union contract. After a request, the fan would sit in the front cab. But that has also been a point of contention for the workers. A driver from the  metro-Philadelphia area, who requested to remain anonymous to prevent corporate backlash, said it took a long time for the fans to be installed.

“The first year, we put in requests for all the trucks,” they said. “We didn’t get any fans the first year. The second year we did it, we still aren’t getting the fans. We start going harder and harder, because every year is getting hotter. We finally get these fans and it’s just one little fan all the way in the left hand corner on the dashboard, pointing at your left elbow.”

Drivers in Teamsters Local 804, the New York branch of the International Teamsters Union that UPS workers are organized under, had similar issues. Elliot Lewis, a union steward there, posted a photo to Twitter of a worker’s request to get a fan installed. The mechanic’s response read, “Can’t install fan. It’s a corporate decision.”

When asked about the incident, a UPS spokesperson said it “should not have occurred” and that they had taken steps to fix it. Anthony Rosario, another driver in the local, said that returned request slips for fans now said the parts were on backorder, and that they would be arriving in October. He said that would be “too late” to help deal with the summer heat.

In a statement to Motherboard, a UPS spokesperson said that the company had increased their response to the summer heat by “providing additional water, ice, electrolyte replacement beverages and fruits with high water content.”

They also said UPS was “distributing 260,000 new uniforms with wicking dry-fit shirts and performance fabric shorts, making more than 125,000 cooling towels available, [and] accelerating the installation of fans in UPS vehicles across the country.”

The metro-Philadelphia driver joked that the uniforms were like “wearing cardboard.”

“All these efforts and collaboration are designed to ensure that every UPS employee makes the most important stop daily stop [sic], which is when they safely arrive home after their workday,” the spokesperson continued in their email.

But drivers say the company is focused more on productivity than anything else. “Production, production, production is all they want,” the metro-Philadelphia driver said. “Our new CEO is all about numbers and all about stocks.” The company’s CEO, Carol B. Tomé, took over in 2020 after serving on the board of directors for 17 years.

“It’s not about customer service,” they said. “It’s not about a name. It’s not about the driver anymore, like it used to be back in the day.”

Dunaj said the backs of the trucks are often over-stuffed with packages. “We shouldn’t have this many packages,” he said. “The trucks shouldn’t look like that.”

UPS drivers told Motherboard that, despite the difficult work in the heat, the pay is famously very good because the company is unionized. According to a UPS spokesperson, full-time package delivery drivers “average $93,000 a year in wages plus an additional $50,000 in health, welfare and pension contributions.”

“We have the best health insurance you can buy,” Dunaj said. Once a driver hits top pay, they would make around $41 an hour, with $60.50 overtime, he continued.

Workers have begun to organize for better conditions. “At this point, it’s been going on for too long,” Rosario from local 804 said. “People have dealt with it, but we’re not in the Stone Age anymore. The company has made billions over this pandemic and there is no reason why they can’t better conditions for the employees that work for this company.”

“[UPS has] provided me with a nice life,” the metro-Philadelphia driver said. “I just don’t want to see one of my friends, one of my coworkers go down and die.”

The post UPS Workers Share Horror Stories About Driving in Heat appeared first on VICE.

But four drivers across multiple UPS locations say that fans, if they’re even installed, often don’t work. They have also told Motherboard about a training—called “Cool Solutions,” according to drivers, which includes such advice as “drink water” and “load up… on watermelon.”

Elliot Lewis, a delivery driver and steward in Teamsters Local 804, the branch of the international Teamsters union that serves New York, posted a photo of a UPS handout about “Hydration and Fatigue” he got on Twitter. 

“Even being mildly dehydrated can leave you feeling foggy and fatigued,” the handout reads. It encourages drivers to drink water consistently throughout the day, and to eat foods such as watermelon, “which are 90% water and a good source of energy.” 

Lewis writes that the handout is from UPS’s “Cool Solutions” training for drivers on how to deal with heat exhaustion. In a previous statement to Motherboard, a UPS spokesperson confirmed the training, and gave details about its content. 

“We have a program that was developed with input from experts in the field of occupational health and safety that focuses on educating employees about hydration along with nutrition and proper sleep before working in hotter temperatures,” the statement read. 

“We have morning meetings with drivers all year round, reminding them of forecasted temperatures and encouraging them to be aware of their own health conditions,” it continued. “In the summer, in addition to providing water and ice for employees, we provide regular heat illness and injury prevention training to all operations managers and drivers.” The spokesperson said that UPS annually invests more than $260 million in safety programs like this one. 

But drivers argue that the program, which also asks drivers to take multiple-choice tests, is not helpful. Mike Dunaj, a driver in Florida, described the training in a phone call to Motherboard. “It’s common sense stuff—how much water you should drink,” he said. “And then there are multiple-choice questions. And if you get one wrong, you’ve got to retake it. But the questions always have the same answer, so you can just write them down.” 

Dunaj said he became extremely dehydrated during his first day on the job because he couldn’t keep up with the amount of water he was losing to sweat. When he finally made it home for the day, his muscle cramps were so bad that he could barely move. “It was the worst experience of my life,” he said. 

“If you dehydrate, they kick you off the road,” Dunaj said, explaining that drivers are sent to work in the warehouse, where they earn lower wages. “So I told [my wife], do not call the ambulance because they’ll take me off the road and I won’t be able to drive. They punish you if you get dehydrated.” 

When he recovered and came back to work, Dunaj said he had to do the “Cool Solutions” quiz over again, and that it was just the same multiple choice answers as the first time he had taken it. “Drink water, drink water, drink water is all they say,” he said. 

Dunaj drinks half a gallon of water and half a gallon of sugar-free gatorade every morning before even getting on the road, and continues to drink throughout the day. 

Another driver, who requested to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation, said in a phone call to Motherboard that UPS’s solution was, “You don’t drink alcohol before work the night before, don’t drink coffee before work, but you come in and make sure you drink water, and if you’re hot, find a shady area.”

In a statement to Motherboard, a UPS spokesperson wrote, “If one of our drivers needs immediate assistance due to extreme heat, local UPS personnel respond by coming to their location to help them safely return to their delivery center or arrange for immediate assistance at their location. We never want our employees to continue working to the point that they risk their health or work in an unsafe manner.” 

“We also send reminders to our employees throughout the day to stay hydrated and to take their rest breaks,” the statement continued. 

Motherboard has previously reported on UPS denying to install fans in trucks when requested. The Teamsters’ contract with UPS mandates that fans be installed upon request. The driver said that the first year after the contract, their facility had put in requests to have fans installed in all the trucks, and they got none. The second year, they still got none. 

“We finally get these fans, and it’s just one little fan all the way in the left hand corner on the dashboard, pointing at your left elbow,” they said. “Once you get to 95 degrees, this is blowing hot air.” 

When asked previously for comment about the fan denial, a UPS spokesperson said it “should not have occurred,” and that they had “taken steps to address it.” It’s unclear whether the requested fan has yet been installed. 

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