Report: Amazon Workers in New York City Plan Warehouse Walkout

Amazon warehouse workers in Minnesota set walkout on 'Prime Day'
AFP

According to a recent report, two hundred Amazon workers plan to walk out of the company’s New York City warehouse where seven workers have fallen sick with the Chinese virus in protest of poor safety measures.

The Daily Mail reports that as many as two hundred Amazon workers are planning to walk out of the company’s New York City warehouse this week as part of a protest against safety conditions at the warehouse. At least seven employees at the New York City facility have already fallen sick with the coronavirus.

Employee and strike leader Christian Smalls told CNN: “The plan is to cease all operations until the building is closed and sanitized. We’re not asking for much. We’re asking the building to be closed and sanitized, and for us to be paid.” Smalls told USA Today: “We’re not returning to work until they close the building down.”

Between fifty and two hundred workers are expected to take part in the protest, however, the facility employs approximately 5,000 workers over the course of a week. It was recently reported that at least six Amazon warehouses in the United States have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic as the e-commerce giant attempts to address a massive increase in shipments as thousands of Americans are confined to their homes.

Amazon warehouses in New York City, Kentucky, Florida, Texas, Michigan, and Oklahoma City all employ individuals who have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to the Washington Post. Recently, Amazon temporarily closed one of its New York delivery stations due to an employee contracting the virus.

Amazon has confirmed that it has been in contact with one of the first employees to be diagnosed with the virus and was “supporting the individual who is recovering.” The firm stated that it had asked all those that were close to the worker to self-quarantine for two weeks and continued to pay them.

Amazon provided the following statement to Breitbart News after this article was originally published:

Of the more 5,000 employees at our Staten Island site, 15 people—less than half a percent of associates—participated in today’s demonstration. Our employees are heroes fighting for their communities and helping people get critical items they need in this crisis. Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable. We have taken extreme measures to keep people safe, tripling down on deep cleaning, procuring safety supplies that are available, changing processes to ensure those in our buildings are keeping safe distances and in Staten Island we are now temperature checking everyone entering the facility. The truth is the vast majority of employees continue to show up and do the heroic work of delivering for customers every day.

Update — Added Amazon’s statement on the walkout and changed the description of Christian Smalls from “assistant manager” to “employee”

Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or email him at lnolan@breitbart.com

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