Amazon, the e-commerce company who did well financially in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, faces a multitude of strikes by its staff. Warehouse employees at Staten Island in New York on Monday walked out of work in protest of the company's treatment in the middle of the crisis.
"Like many companies dealing with the current pandemic, we are working hard to keep workers safe while helping neighborhoods and the most vulnerable," an Amazon spokesperson disclosed to TechCrunch.
Around 24 Amazon staff in the state walked off the job to protest what they call the company's "foot-dragging on shielding employees from the novel coronavirus."
"Since the building is not going to shut on its own, we are going to have to force their hand," Chris Smalls, Staten Island strike head organizer, told CNBC. He added that employees "will not return until they have sanitized the building."
After news of several workers testing positive for coronavirus, the strikers at the JFK8 Warehouse requested the company to shut down the huge warehouse for thorough cleaning.
As coronavirus cases emerged in factories and stores, workers - encouraged by politicians and labor activists - began to demand fair wages, sick leave, and on-the-job protection from the deadly respiratory disease.
Amazon, America's second-largest private employer, has long been the victim of attempts to coordinate the workers. Overall the business empire has lost.
In solidarity with warehouse employees, Amazon's tech staff demand that the company offer full-paid family leave for people missing work, offer full-paid leave to all Amazon employees, close facilities immediately after contamination, provide full-paid leave for staff whose jobs are affected by these closures, and provide that everyone has sufficient time to look after their well-being.
According to media reports, staff in at least 11 Amazon locations nationwide tested positive for the virus. The company's Queens, New York, warehouse was shut down for several hours overnight - with the first reported case of a worker testing positive - which staff claimed was insufficient time to deep-clean.
A facility in Shakopee, Minnesota, was also closed down and washed. Initially a facility in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, was shut down for two days but is now shuttered until April 1 following an order from Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear.
Amazon increased the $15 an hour starting pay in the U.S. by $2 an hour by April's end, and increasing the overtime wage. Staff at an Amazon warehouse in northern Italy, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, said on Friday that they had reached an agreement that promised a further five-minute break for employees to help improve personal hygiene, and that permanent temporary enhanced cleaning procedures had been enforced during the pandemic.
