Amazon is taking steps to upgrade air conditioning systems in the New Jersey warehouse where an employee perished during last summer’s Prime Day scramble. While the company insists the death was not heat related and the new installations do not amount to an admission, there is no denying temperatures in the facility were blistering on the fateful day. The tragedy spotlights the oppressive and dangerous conditions pervading Amazon’s vast network of warehouses, the predictable if not deliberate result of a degrading business model that uses grueling productive quotas to systematically deplete and discard what the company refers to as “industrial athletes.”

After a two-day strike — its first in decades — the Columbus Education Association is set to return to the bargaining table with Columbus City Schools this afternoon. Even with the assistance of federal mediators, last week’s marathon sessions ended without agreement, and nearly 95 percent of the union’s 4,500 members — teachers, librarians, nurses, counselors, psychologists, and other educational professionals — rejected the school board’s final offer on Sunday. The union has called for better heating and cooling systems, smaller class sizes, more planning time, and pay raises.

In the latest organizing news, nearly 200 employees at a General Electric plant in Auburn, Ala. filed an election petition with the NLRB on Monday seeking to join IUE-CWA. While the road to securing a collective bargaining agreement remains daunting, the petition signals that the nationwide organizing surge may yet penetrate the bitterly antiunion Southeast.