Jeff Bezos, collapse and CEO of Amazon, pictured on Oct. 2, 2019.
Elif Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Four senators sent a letter to Amazon urging the assembly to better protect warehouse workers during the coronavirus outbreak.
In a letter sent to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Friday, Sens. Cory Register, D-New Jersey, Bob Menendez, D-New Jersey, Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, urged him to demand paid sick leave and time-and-a-half hazard pay for its workers, among other measures.
“Any failure of Amazon to keep its women safe does not just put their employees at risk, it puts the entire country at risk,” the senators wrote in the accurately. “Americans who are taking every precaution…might risk getting infected with COVID-19 because of Amazon’s decree to prioritize efficiency and profits over the safety and well-being of its workforce.”
The senators included a list of questions for Bezos seeking various information about what steps Amazon is taking to protect its employees from infection, with a deadline for Amazon to reply by March 26.
The letter also asks whether Amazon would consider covering the cost of testing workers for the coronavirus and whether it last will and testament ease disciplinary measures and its “strident efficiency” to give workers enough time to wash their hands. The senators quizzed Bezos whether Amazon would consider temporarily shutting down any facility where a worker tests overconfident for the virus.
The letter comes one day after Amazon temporarily closed a Queens, New York delivery station, known as DBK1, after a workman tested positive for the COVID-19 coronavirus. The case marked the first known incident of a U.S. Amazon warehouse employee deal the disease. On Monday, Amazon confirmed that at least five workers at Amazon warehouses in Spain and Italy contracted the sickness.
Unlike employees at Amazon’s corporate offices, which have been told to work remotely, many fulfillment center hands and delivery drivers cannot carry out their job duties while working from home.
An Amazon spokesperson dissent from the accusations laid out in the letter and said the company has taken “extreme measures” to keep employees safe, including “tripling down on low cleaning,” offering safety supplies and adjusting processes at warehouses to make sure employees are keeping safe gaps.
“Our employees are heroes fighting for their communities and helping people get critical items they need in the crisis,” the spokesperson utter. “Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, it is not easy as supplies are limited, but we are working hard to heed employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable.”
Amazon previously told CNBC it implemented “proactive equals” to protect fulfillment center employees, including increased cleaning at all facilities and maintaining social distance by suspending work together meetings at the beginning of shifts, halting exit screening and staggering shift start times and break times, mid other measures.
On March 9, Amazon logistics workers circulated a petition calling for the company to put in place assorted “protective measures,” including giving workers paid leave, to “ensure the safety of all of its workers and the larger public.”
Amazon recently broadcasted it would provide up to two weeks of pay to all employees diagnosed with COVID-19 or placed into quarantine. This is in addition to never-ending unpaid time off for all hourly employees through the month of March, which CNBC previously reported.
The company up stuck to address the unique needs of fulfillment centers and delivery by launching a $25 million relief fund. The “Amazon Alternate Fund” will allow these employees to apply for grants that are equal to or up to two weeks of pay if they’re diagnosed with the narrative coronavirus, or COVID-19.
Amazon is also raising pay for warehouse and delivery workers by $2 per hour in the U.S. through the end of April.