Amazon’s Prime Day Hazardous for Warehouse Workers

One of the most anticipated online events for shoppers is Prime Day, an annual shopping event where Amazon offers discounts to its Prime members to boost sales. The story, however, is different for employees at warehouses. When the pandemic began, Amazon told a judge it would suspend productivity quotas at its stores, but the company led by Jeff Bezos reinstated them, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing a court appearance by the company's workers, in which they claim that Amazon's "oppressive and dangerous" policies violated public nuisance laws and heightened the risks of COVID-19. Employees at a warehouse in Staten Island, New York, told Bloomberg that Amazon had not been honest and forthright in court about not sanctioning workers for not meeting the company's quotas for the number of tasks performed each hour.

Days before the start of Prime Day, Verdi, a German trade union that has organized strikes against Amazon since 2013, called on workers in seven warehouses to go on strike to coincide with the annual event. Despite the strike call, an Amazon spokesperson said most employees were still working normally, adding that the company offered "excellent wages" with benefits and working conditions comparable to those of other major employers. 

In recent years, the number of employees forming unions to demand better working conditions from Amazon has increased. "Over the years, the giant has avoided unionism at US stores through a combination of corporate anti-union tactics and employee benefits designed to convince workers and customers that Amazon is generous. But the new COVID-19 threatens to do what unions have failed to do in years: empower workers," Matt Day said in a Bloomberg Businessweek story in May. 

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