Unsanitized: The Dangerous Life of an Amazon Worker

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Anthony Behar/Sipa USA

Amazon workers are still on the job, but face tremendous hazards with only temporary benefits.

First Response

Investor analyst Bill Miller has called the U.S. response to the coronavirus the “Amazon Subsidy Act of 2020.” Instead of allowing Amazon to undercut its competition, the social distancing and crowd suppression measures do the job for it, removing nearly all retail competition and favoring online ordering where Amazon was already dominant. A week ago, Amazon announced it was hiring an additional 100,000 workers to deal with the crush of demand. Google and Facebook are essentially advertising companies, and with advertising wounded, they’re going to take a hit. But Amazon, with a physical business tailor-made for our new reality, will benefit now and especially in the future, as they tower over a rotted retail landscape.

How has this filtered down to people like Tyler Hamilton, a worker at Amazon’s warehouse in Shakopee, Minnesota? He gets a couple more bucks an hour now, as Amazon raised its base pay to $17 to attract workers. And amid other complaints from Senators about hazard pay, on Sunday Amazon made overtime work double time instead of time and a half. “It helps, but to get the hazard pay you have to be there for 40 hours a week and the overtime,” said Hamilton, who has been organizing with The Awood Center, a community group that’s part of a larger grassroots coalition pressuring Amazon called Athena. “A lot of people are going to be there for longer. People will take as much OT as they can get, because we’re all poor.”

What Amazon gives with the overtime pay, then, comes at the expense of worker safety, which is nearly impossible to manage in the warehouse and delivery environments. The amount of people in warehouses and the workload makes physical distancing difficult. Amazon has put tape on the floor of Hamilton’s warehouse using a standard of maintaining a three-foot distance from co-workers, half of the recommended six-foot standard. At least one Amazon worker tested positive for COVID-19 in a warehouse in Queens, and the company re-opened the next day. Workers at two New York Whole Foods, a division of Amazon, have also tested positive.

Workers and advocates say the contamination was wholly predictable and has probably already happened. Warehouse work is a high-pressure, high-speed environment, with every move tracked for maximum efficiency. And it involves constant contact with different work teams, an efficient way to spread contagious disease across shifts. People in indirect positions move from station to station, coming into contact with every team in the warehouse. None of that has changed.

“There isn’t more time to go to wash your hands,” said Dania Rajendra, director of Athena, whose 50 member organizations have highlighted Amazon’s monopoly and the effect on society. “There isn’t time to sanitize non-porous surfaces you’re coming into contact with.” Rajendra added that delivery drivers aren’t getting sanitary equipment like hand wipes, as they move throughout communities and make contact with lots of potentially sick people. In a letter to employees, CEO Jeff Bezos said he placed purchase orders for face masks for workers, but hasn’t received many. Even the janitors at Amazon’s headquarters have been put at risk; they’re using a new disinfectant that reportedly makes their eyes burn. “It’s a lot to ask of Amazon workers to risk their own health and the health of everyone they know for $17 an hour,” said Rajendra.

If an Amazon worker does get sick, they have little recourse. Amazon added up to two weeks of paid sick leave for anyone diagnosed with COVID-19; with testing scarce, this is essentially unavailable to most low-wage warehouse workers. Amazon also expanded unpaid time off, meaning that people can stay at home if they feel sick or unsafe without fear of being fired. Of course, workers staying home don’t get paid. “We know that the primary way for people to protect themselves is to stay at home,” Rajendra said, “but that’s fundamentally unavailable for people in low-wage work, including Amazon.”

Moreover, while unpaid leave limits were suspended in March, that decision has yet to be made for April. If warehouse workers burn up unpaid leave, they could be immediately fired or find themselves with no ability to take time off if other life changes occur. “Most people use time off as a backstop flexibility for living their lives,” said Hamilton, the warehouse worker in Minnesota. “Most people at my warehouse have two or three jobs. They use small bits of time off, getting off an hour to get some sleep before another shift. A lot of workers don’t have much left.” Whole Foods CEO John Mackey has asked employees to donate sick days to those in need, a stunningly callous ask in an ongoing crisis.

Not everyone Amazon employs to do its business works directly for the company. For contractors, Amazon did create the Amazon Relief Fund to deliver assistance, seeding it with a $25 million grant. Workers could get two weeks paid time off from the relief fund if they are diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine “by the government or Amazon” (!). But they have to apply for it. “When you look at the application, there’s a lot of language about requesting support from individuals to donate,” said Rajendra. “The richest person in the world runs Amazon and the employee relief fund is asking for donations. It’s neoliberalism on steroids.”

Athena and its partners are fighting for more safety measures and more pay, and while government should mandate it, some politicians are engaging in similar pressure tactics. I suspect it won’t be long before you see rumblings about worker strikes, though low-wage workers without union representation are simply outgunned in such a scenario.

“This is a big opportunity for Amazon,” said Tyler Hamilton, citing the ability for the company to grow in retail dominance, while the measures they’ve taken to reward employees are all temporary. “Amazon keeps the market share, while workers keep not much. If you want workers to take ownership, you have to give them a stake in it.”

Vital Stats

New York Times: 33,018 U.S. cases (24,380), 428 deaths (340). That’s an increase of 8,738 cases and 88 deaths from yesterday. Johns Hopkins University: 35,225 cases (26,747), 471 deaths (340), so that’s up 8,478 cases and 131 deaths from yesterday. The cases could be an artifact of catching up with testing, but the deaths tell a troubling, escalating story.

The COVID-19 Tracker shows 32,617 cases (24,345) and 411 deaths (296), and 238,632 tests completed (191,541) tests completed. That’s 47,091 tests since yesterday. Again, to reach South Korea’s testing level on a per capita basis, we need something between 75,000-100,000 tests per day; we’re tracking closer to 40,000-50,000 right now.

The View from Your Window

Many are talking about the difference in action and results between neighboring states Kentucky, with a new Democratic governor, and Tennessee, with its Republican government. Reader BH offers another border dichotomy:

I live in a town of 200 people 35 miles south of Spokane, WA. I work for city government in Washington and have worked from home for a week so far.

I see big difference between eastern WA and ID—stores in WA are out of most food staples, soaps, most laundry supplies, water, etc. 

Yesterday my wife and I drove to Coeur d’Alene, ID, to try supply buying.

In Idaho, almost no one is wearing gloves or masks. No social distancing. 

Limits on paper goods and water, but not on food items. Pasta and rice and canned beans and soups are gone, but most other items still in stock, unlike WA. 

The grocery employees aren’t given gloves! I asked one how she’s doing. She said, “One day at a time.”

Big difference in ID—all stores and restaurants open! Bulk food grocery still in action: share those pens! No sign this will change, as grocery stores are critical businesses anyway. 

Also, in ID, after the grocery store, my wife went to Cabela’s sporting goods to buy propane and a gun (her idea). Guns are in high demand in Idaho. No social distancing at the gun counter!

My wife and I did wear gloves and used our cycling Buffs like masks to cover our mouth and nose in each store while we shopped and just got weird looks. 

Bottom line, I see a huge difference in the behavior by state. This may be result of seeing store closures, as eastern WA is just about as red as ID. This is also Trump country. 

I want to hear your stories of dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. Tell me about your experiences. Email me at ddayen-at-prospect-dot-org.

Today I Learned

• Still no news of a deal on the corporate bailout/emergency relief. April 1, when rent checks are due, in just 9 days.
• How the rich jump the line for testing and treatment. (Bloomberg)
• New York Times interactive on the spread of the virus. (New York Times)
• Congressman Mark DeSaulnier’s unrelated tragic illness shows how regular medical emergencies don’t end when COVID-19 peaks. (HuffPost)
• Meanwhile, COVID-19 sufferer and congressmember Ben McAdams enters the hospital. (Salt Lake Tribune)
• The Fed announces a major escalation of its market support, including corporate bond buys. (Wall Street Journal)
• Elizabeth Warren is everywhere. (HuffPost)