The plight of American warehouse workers
Amazon and Walmart earning billions of dollars but forcing the workers to work in unsafe working conditions
The American
warehouse workers are worried about their safety and wellbeing as the spike in
coronavirus infections has made the working conditions more unsafe and dangerous.
The daily COVID-19 infections in America have crossed 1, 80,000 while nearly 2,
50,000 people already dead.
The 1.27
million workers are working in warehouses across America to send the online
shopping orders to customers on time. The number of warehouse and storage jobs
has doubled since 2010, reaching 1.27 million this October, up from 629,000 in
2010.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the people to
opt for online shopping during the peak season of Thanksgiving festivities.
More people have given up the traditional shopping as the fears of COVID-19
infections are growing. The success or failure of the season sales depends on
warehouse workers more than ever before in 2020.
The
E-commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart has increased their profits
significantly since the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic. The companies’ profits
are growing but wages of workers are almost stagnant. The exploitation of
workers has increased and their working conditions are worsening.
They are
earning billions of dollars every month as online shopping grows. But they are
not doing enough to provide their workers safer working conditions. They are
not spending enough to improve the working conditions and providing all the
necessary personal protection equipments (PPEs).
Many coworkers fail to follow mask requirements;
social distancing is difficult, especially as groups’ crowd together at the
beginning and ends of shifts. Rumors of COVID cases permeate the distribution
center, with little communication from higher-ups when coworkers stop showing
up to work. And, with the holiday shopping season in full swing, more and more
workers are being hired.
Working in
warehouses comes with risks, even before the pandemic. Warehouse workers are
injured at a significantly higher rate than workers of other industries, whether
by being struck by stacked boxes, forklift turnovers, or repetitive motion
injuries. Twenty-eight warehouse workers died on the job in 2018, the most
recent year the Bureau of Labor Statistics has recorded data on industry
deaths.
The Center
of Investigative Journalism report has revealed that 14,000 workers were injured
in Amazon's distribution centers from 2016 to 2019. The injuries typically
spike around the holidays and Prime Day. Some warehouse employees
worry that more work and hires could also increase the chances of catching COVID
during peak season, just as the virus surges across the US.
By October,
warehouse and storage workers had become a rare type of job that had not only
recovered but beat pre-pandemic employment numbers. Retailers rely on a
web of warehouses across America to keep shelves stocked and deliver packages
to online shoppers.
Companies
need warehouse workers to guarantee the delivery of holiday packages amid the
e-commerce boom. But, hiring more could make warehouse workers' jobs riskier —
and, if that risk escalates into an outbreak, send the entire system crashing
down.
For a lot of
people, warehouse workers are sort of like an invisible part of the supply
chain. They're not the one behind the cash register. They're not the ones you
see in the stores. But they're the ones that make it all possible.
When there
are already concerns about social distancing, already concerns about sanitation
— more workers in a facility does mean more risk. It is often easier for
unsafe practices to go overlooked in warehouses because, unlike a store, most
customers do not see what is actually happening.
Booming
e-commerce sales, skyrocketing warehouse employment, and COVID anxiety are the
backdrop for an unprecedented holiday shopping season. Adobe Analytics predicts
US online holiday sales will reach $189 billion in 2020, up 33% compare to
last year.
But the
companies are failing the workers on occupational health and safety at
workplace. A Walmart worker said he called the health department to ask if the
company was required to alert workers or close the warehouse if someone caught
COVID. He was told that these decisions were up to Walmart.
One worker
said that “no one seems to really care. No one knows who to go to, who to speak
with, if anything will even be done. "That's the scariest part — knowing
that all of this is happening and nothing seems able to be done."
The workers
inside Amazon fulfillment centers since the pandemic started in March,
prompting an unprecedented series of protests, strike actions and public petitions
that have united some of Amazon’s corporate and warehouse workers against their
employer for the first time. In turn, this unrest has attracted scrutiny from top
politicians over the company’s labor practices, and threatens to harm Amazon’s
reputation in the eyes of the hundreds of millions of people who shop on the
platform every year. It also reveals inequalities in the economy that Amazon
has flourished in, an economy that the e-commerce giant is also shaping as its
size and influence expand.
Amazon, the
second-largest private US employer after Walmart, pays its fulfillment center
workers a $15 minimum hourly wage and offers superior benefits when compared to
some major competitors. But many of the company’s workers still say they
find it hard to meet the daily needs, and they have such limited work options
that they keep showing up to sort, pack, and deliver shipments for Amazon even
as they fear the company isn’t doing enough to keep them safe during a global
health crisis.
Amazon has
responded to workers’ complaints by cracking down on dissenters. The company
has fired at least six employees who were involved in recent worker protests or
who spoke out about working conditions at Amazon, including several who were
visible leaders within the company on worker issues. Sources told Recode the
company has also reprimanded at least six other employees during the same
period who were involved in recent protests.
Khalid Bhatti
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