Putting Profits Before Workers’ Safety: Inside Amazon During the COVID-19 Crisis
by Matt SmithAs coronavirus continues to spread and much of the country is locking down, Amazon has been ramping up. With more people staying home, delivery is becoming more important than ever, and more lucrative. Demand is soaring for deliveries on everyday necessities, everything from toilet paper to powdered milk.
All these deliveries require an army of workers—drivers, handlers, sorters, and more—at the company’s vast network of fulfillment and delivery centers. I am part of that army, a contracted cargo handler at an Amazon delivery station outside of Seattle, near the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak.
While so many in the working class suffer an untold cost from coronavirus-related wage losses and layoffs, those of us still working bear the brunt in other ways. My coworkers and I are working harder than ever, putting our health on the line to provide an important service to our quarantined neighbors. But the executives and the billionaires at Amazon and its contractors are unfortunately not taking basic steps to protect our health and the health of the public, despite what their PR departments might say.
Unhealthy Conditions at Amazon
The Amazon delivery network is a potential hotbed for coronavirus spread. While health officials advise against meetings of 10 or more people, Amazon warehouses have 100, 500, or even 1500 employees working in a single location. From these warehouses, drivers and cargo handlers like me are dispatched all over the region, entering thousands of apartment buildings, businesses, and residences to deliver packages.
Despite this clear potential for danger, Amazon has not taken many simple precautions to prevent an outbreak. For example, neither Amazon nor our contractor has provided basic supplies like hand sanitizer for our trucks, to disinfect between deliveries, in spite of repeated requests from workers.
At our delivery station, we have also not seen any increase in our paid sick leave to account for the virus threat. Many of our coworkers would face a difficult choice if they experienced symptoms of coronavirus: go to work and risk infecting your coworkers, or miss as many as 5 days of pay (the time it can take to get tested for COVID-19 and receive the results). In the context of high rents, low wages, and no support for paid leave, many of them will be forced to take the risk and come to work.
On top of this, there has been remarkably little communication from Amazon management about precautions and procedures, including the question of what happens if one of our coworkers were to test positive for COVID-19. This question has become even more urgent, after an Amazon associate recently tested positive at a delivery station in New York City and five tested positive at a warehouse in Spain. In New York, employees say that it was co-workers—not Amazon management—that informed them of the positive test result, and that workers were asked to come in for their shift after the case was discovered. Amazon should communicate clearly with its employees and contractors about this threat, and they should immediately shut down any facility where a positive coronavirus case is found, with full pay for all affected workers.
These problems are not isolated to Seattle and New York. My Amazon coworkers have been increasingly trying to sound the alarm at warehouses around the country—but often anonymously, for fear of retaliation.
Workers and Community Members Need to Fight Back
Urgent action is needed, for workers like me who are being put into increasing danger, and for workers who are losing incomes because they are forced to stay home without paid leave or have been laid off.
The bosses of huge corporations like Amazon appear to have no intention of fixing these problems on their own, despite having the money necessary to do so, out of concern for their profits. Neither do the Democratic and Republican political establishments, which have failed to address the needs of working people even in normal times. To solve this crisis, workers will need to organize and demand change, whether for immediate cash assistance, guaranteed paid sick leave, safe working conditions, or Medicare for All.
In Seattle, socialist Councilmember Kshama Sawant is fighting for a $500 million tax on big corporations like Amazon to fund immediate relief for working people. Workers, socialists, labor unions, and activists will need to join in this fight if we want to win.
In another important step, over 1,500 Amazon employees from around the world have signed a public petition calling for action from the company. In addition to urgent safety precautions, the petition correctly calls for Amazon to institute 1.5x hazard pay for all of us who are risking our health to do this work.
Deeper Problems Exposed
The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing the bankruptcy of capitalism. Corporations like Amazon put profits over the health of their workers and the community. When workplace problems arise, employees have little to no recourse through regular corporate structures, where unresponsive bosses have a monopoly on decision-making.
This system, which was already failing the vast majority of working people even before the coronavirus outbreak, has shown its complete inability to deal with the global pandemic as well as the rapidly emerging climate crisis. The model of siphoning off unimaginable wealth to the top, while even the most essential social needs like healthcare are starved, is not working. We urgently need a single-payer Medicare for All system, where the profits of insurance and big pharma are de-prioritized, so that the health needs of ordinary people can be met. Workers will need to get organized and build mass movements to win this kind of change.
But that will not be enough. Ultimately, unless entire sectors like healthcare and energy and housing, and large corporations like Amazon, are taken into democratic public ownership, crises such as coronavirus and climate change will not be addressed. Instead of allowing massive layoffs and bailing out big corporations like Boeing, we need to take the major corporations into our own hands as workers and democratically run them ourselves.
More articles by:Matt Smith
Matt Smith is an Amazon cargo handler and member of Socialist Alternative.
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* Dergelijke 'arbeidsvoorwaarden' zullen als het 'even meezit' ook in de EU worden ingevoerd als de EU het voor elkaar kriijgt dat de Trump administraite het TTIP verdrag tekent, immers er zou dan een scheve concurrentie positie ontstaan, daar we in de EU vooralsnog veel meer uitgeven aan arbeidsvoorwaarden, dan in de VS....... Ofwel Amazon zal in een geheime rechtbank (ISDS) aanklachten indienen over het verschil in de arbeidsvoorwaarden zoals die in de VS en de EU worden nageleefd en eisen dat de EU haar arbeidsvoorwaarden 'terugschaalt', immers Amazon heeft ook steeds meer bedrijven in de EU, zoals het nu begint aan de verspreiding van goederen in Nederland.....
Zie ook:
'Twitter ondermijnt met censuur Venezolaans regeringsbeleid op het Coronavirus'
'Rusland, China en Cuba (echt) solidair met Coronaslachtoffers: zij helpen Italië, terwijl China zegt snel een vaccin te zullen hebben ontwikkeld'
'CBS let op: in Duitsland is het consumentenvertrouwen wel onderuit gegaan door de Coronacrisis'
'Coronavirus: Roche laat zien waar farmaceuten voor staan: inhumaniteit, zelfzucht en bakken geld verdienen' (en zie de links in dat bericht)
'Coronavirus hapsnapbeleid Rutte 3 en RIVM'
'Coronavirus: Franse artsen dienen klacht in tegen de minister-president wegens liegen over virus'
'Coronavirus: in tijden van crisis moet het kabinet totale openheid geven'
'Beursgenoteerde bedrijven hebben eigen aandelen ingekocht en hebben nu door de Coronacrisis steun nodig van de overheid'
'Grote bendes met apen vechten voor voedsel op de straten van Thailand'
'Coronavirus: Bruno Bruins slachtoffer van overwerken? 'Slachtoffer' van disfunctioneren zal je bedoelen!'
'Huiselijk geweld: vrouwen worden vermoord 'door de maatregelen' tegen het Coronavirus'
'Coronavirus advies voor ouderen van ANBO directeur den Haan'
'VS roept alle burgers op terug te keren naar huis' (was dat maar waar: alle VS burgers, inclusief de militairen...)
'Coronavirus: RIVM adviezen en daarmee het regeringsbeleid van Rutte 3: onvoldoende en misleidend'
'Coronavirus: de eerste patiënten met het virus gemeld in openluchtgevangenis Gazastrook'
'Coronavirus: KLM ontslaat 2.000 mensen, schrapt vluchten met de Boeing 747 en krijgt een bak belastinggeld van de overheid'
'Coronavirus: 'Ik hoef mijn geld niet terug''
'CBS: consumentenvertrouwen ondanks Coronavirus niet gezakt sinds januari.... ha! ha! ha! ha!'
'Coronavirus onzin: groepsimmuniteit en het ad hoc beleid van Rutte'
'Coronavirus: Netanyahu probeert zich sociaal voor te doen, 'we' zitten allemaal in dezelfde 'Corona-boot', jammer dan dat hij de Palestijnen overboord heeft gezet'
'Coronavirus: Center for Disease Control in VS ontvangt 11 miljard dollar tegen 738 miljard voor oorlogsvoering'
'Coronavirus: Netanyahu probeert zich sociaal voor te doen, 'we' zitten allemaal in dezelfde 'Corona-boot', jammer dan dat hij de Palestijnen overboord heeft gezet'
'Coronavirus: Duitsland verplicht alle openbare gelegenheden de poort te sluiten, behalve religies'
'Coronavirus: Iran extra getroffen vanwege illegale VS sancties'
'Coronavirus: tradities van de Nederlandse (fascistische) onderbuik'
'Coronavirus en de sluiting van koffieshops, waar supermarkten met een horecagelegenheid open mogen blijven'
'Coronavirus: Alex Azar, ex-farmaceutische maffia en huidig VS minister volksgezondheid, stelt dat een vaccin niet bedoeld is voor het hele volk'
'Coronavirus: Trump leest de EU de les, terwijl men niet weet hoeveel patiënten er in de VS zijn'
'Coronavirus: Rutte heeft de regie.... 'God zij dank!' Deel 2'
'Coronavirus: Iran extra getroffen vanwege illegale VS sancties'
'Coronavirus als excuus om de stresstest van banken niet uit te voeren'
'Coronavirus en WOIII'
'Coronavirus: Rutte heeft de regie, 'god zij dank......''
'Corona antivirusbescherming'
'Coronavirus: Bruno Bruins (minister Medische Zorg): geen reden om grote evenementen te verbieden'
'Coronavirus en carnaval: 'een gouden combinatie' en BBC W.S. verslaggever voor Iran hekelt de aanpak van het virus in dat land'
'Coronavirus sensatie op Radio1: een thema-uitzending......'
'Coronavirus: 'een probaat middel' tegen de klimaatverandering en de luchtvervuiling.....'
'Coronavirus tragedie misbruikt voor racisme en het zaaien van haat'
'Coronavirus: Bruno Bruins (VVD 'minister' Volksgezondheid) slaat rood uit' (ja ik weet het, Bruins is minister 'Medische Zorg', of beter gezegd: was, daar hij inmiddels [19 maart 2020] is afgetreden)
'Coronavirus hysterie: Corona vs. griep'