I've been loosely following the recent warehouse fires in the United States, and the way the situation is developing seems like a worthwhile thing to pay attention to.
For those who don't know, Chamel Abdulkarim, an employee at a Kimberly-Clark warehouse in Ontario, California, filmed himself setting fire to products while saying "all you had to do was pay us enough to fucking live," and other phrases echoing those words. The fire was a form of wage protest.
This was the first fire that appeared in my news feed.
As I've looked into this protest, I've learned about five other fires in the past 2-3 days: Another in California, one in West Jefferson, Ohio, one in Queens, New York, one in Newark, New Jersey, and one in Ridley, Pennsylvania. I have not seen confirmation that all of them were intentional blazes, but they all occurred at large warehouses or storefronts.
Additionally, I've been taking a look at the comments on videos about these events. There has been a lot of support for Abdulkarim and the fires as a way to strike at corporations, but there's also been some criticism. What I find most interesting about the criticism is that people don't seem to be debating whether or not being underpaid was okay, or whether the companies deserve to be hit; the criticism mostly seems to be against arson as a tactic due to potential harm to the environment or other workers. In other words, the broad consensus seems to agree that companies are hurting workers and that people need to strike back in some way.
For me, it's too early and I am not informed enough yet to draw serious conclusions from this. Just based on the preliminary information, though, it seems like this could signify a genuine move towards class action.
