Amazon Warehouse Workers Plan Nationwide Protest This Week To Demand Coronavirus Protections

[appalachiablue]

Source: CNBC

Amazon warehouse workers are planning a "mass call out" this week to call attention to what they call a lack of protections for employees who continue to come to work amid the coronavirus outbreak.

More than 300 Amazon workers across at least 50 facilities have signed up to take part in the protest, according to United for Respect, a worker rights group. To participate in the protest, workers will call out of work "en masse across the country" starting tomorrow and throughout the week. The protest is taking place across several days because workers are scheduled to report to their shifts on different days and at various times.

The workers are calling for Amazon to "immediately close down" any facilities that report positive cases and to provide testing and two weeks of pay for workers during that time. They're also calling for Amazon to provide paid sick leave, guarantee healthcare for all Amazon associates, eliminate rate-based quotas "that make hand-washing and sanitizing impossible" and commit not to retaliate against associates who speak out, among other demands.

The protest marks the first nationwide effort by warehouse workers to demand coronavirus safety protections, after workers staged walkouts at Amazon facilities in Staten Island, New York; Detroit and Illinois in recent weeks. Their calls have also sparked action from some of Amazon's corporate employees, who are hosting a "virtual sick out" on April 24 to demand that the company reinstate fired workers and to protest its treatment of warehouse workers...

Read more: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/amazon-warehouse-workers-plan-nationwide-protest-this-week-to-demand-coronavirus-protections/ar-BB12WiAo?li=BBnbfcL&ocid=HPCOMMDHP15

[turbinetree]

1. I had to go to two places today, big box store and my grocery store............

what I was struck by, was that neither company and the employees had the same kind of mask being issued................that is messed up...........for essential workers....................this needs to be laid at trumps feet..................and yes, I have gone political...................................

[appalachiablue]

3. Awful, we can do better than Third World operation (no offense)

[Flaleftist]

8. Hospitals are having a hard enough time finding PPE for their staff.

It must be worse for stores. They do seem to be allowing their employees to wear their own masks and issuing whatever masks they are able to procure. If the employees are able to obtain better masks on their own than what they company can find and provide for their workers, that would explain why some employees in stores have better masks than others. I've seen some stores where most employees were wearing surgical masks and others are wearing N95s or better.

[iluvtennis]

2. Many in this nation are depending on Amazon for goods during this lockdown. I support the

workers. They need to know their workplace is a safe environment.

[appalachiablue]

4. America must do a lot better than this in a worldwide crisis, scary

[cstanleytech]

5. Question is how many of them will lose their jobs over this? After all I fully expect they will be

retaliated on by the company. Maybe not right away of course but I am willing to wager it will happen.

[appalachiablue]

6. I read that 1 or 2 workers that helped organize in Staten Isl were fired

[NYC Liberal]

10. Yeah. But New York is investigating it now (and so is the NLRB).

I hope they throw the book at them.

[Ahpook]

7. Good for them

Fuck the corporate pricks putting these people in peril. You know they won't be anywhere near, but tucked away safe and sound at home.

Most of my friends are called back by May 1st. One is a bartender in a normally very busy bar. There again, you know the owners won't be anywhere near the place.

He hopes no drinkers come out and they will just close back up. You'd be a damned fool to sit in a bar with 500 people right now.

[BigmanPigman]

9. What is Bezos up to these days?

I bet he has many masks. Boycott Amazon if you can!