Amazon workers at two Chicago warehouses walk out to demand better treatment
Amanda Silberling
Wed, December 22, 2021
This morning, dozens of warehouse workers at two Amazon facilities near Chicago staged a pre-Christmas walkout during the busiest time of the year to demand better treatment and higher wages.
"We have been passed over for raises. We are being overworked, even when there is sufficient people to work here," a worker at the DLN2 facility in Cicero said on a livestream posted by the Amazonians United's Chicago chapter, which is not affiliated with Amazon. "We have not received the bonuses we were promised. There are people here who were hired as permanent workers, and then they took their badges away and made them temporary workers. They are staffing this place unsafely, making people work too fast, even though we don't have to."
These workers, who work between 1:20 AM and 11:50 AM, are also demanding a $5 per hour raise. Amazon told TechCrunch that the current starting pay is $15.80 per hour at the two facilities that staged walkouts, DLN2 in Cicero and DIL3 in Gage Park. The Amazonians United speaker also said that the facility used to have 20-minute breaks as a pandemic precaution, but these have been reduced to 15 minutes. However, the pandemic is not over, especially as the omicron variant spreads -- three workers tested positive for COVID yesterday at the Cicero facility, according to the speaker.
Before walking out, the workers presented management with a petition listing their demands, but they said they didn't receive a response, thus prompting the walkout.
The speaker also claimed that workers were told by management that whoever participates in the walkout "might as well leave their badges," meaning that they wouldn't be coming back. It's illegal to take action against the employees of private companies for staging a walkout. But employees reportedly returned after the strikes to find that their schedules were blank and they had been clocked out for the day, sparking concern about retaliation among walkout participants.
“We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. We are proud to offer employees leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity to grow with our company," an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement.
The Amazon representative added that no workers are being fired or suspended due to their participation in the walkout. The company said that workers were repeatedly reassured that no retaliation would occur if they protested.
But across the country, Amazon workers have accused the company of trying to quash labor organizing. Last year, Amazonians United co-founder Jonathan Bailey filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), stating that the company violated labor laws by retaliating against him for organizing. He said he was detained and interrogated by a manager for 90 minutes after organizing a walkout. The NLRB found merit to these allegations and filed a federal complaint against Amazon. The company settled, and as part of the settlement agreement, was required to remind employees via emails and on physical bulletin boards that they have the right to organize.
Bailey's complaint to the NLRB was one of 37 against Amazon between February 2020 and March 2021, according to NBC News. But just months after this settlement, Amazon was found to have unlawfully prevented a Staten Island employee from distributing pro-union literature in the break room.
Labor board authorizes new Amazon union vote
Even corporate employees have filed complaints against Amazon with the NLRB. In September, the company settled a complaint from two former Seattle office employees, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, who were terminated after advocating for warehouse workers at the onset of the pandemic. The settlement requires Amazon to compensate Costa and Cunningham for lost wages, and once again, notify employees of their right to speak out about issues at Amazon.
But in recent weeks, tensions have escalated further. On December 10 in Edwardsville, Illinois, six Amazon employees were killed when a tornado destroyed the DLI4 facility. For years, Amazon workers weren't allowed to carry cell phones on warehouse floors, but the company relaxed this policy during the pandemic. Recently though, Amazon began reinstating the policy. So, when the National Weather Service issued an emergency alert urging people to take shelter, some Amazon employees had no way of knowing that a lethal storm was on its way.
As Amazon workers in facilities across the country seek better compensation and conditions, the e-commerce giant is in the midst of its busiest time of the year.
"We will work hard to make sure that everyone gets their Christmas gifts, everyone gets their packages," a Chicago warehouse worker told FOX 32 Chicago. "But, you know, we just want to be treated fairly. That's all."
Amazon warehouse workers are walking out and Whole Foods workers are striking
Amanda Silberling
Wed, December 22, 2021
This morning, dozens of warehouse workers at two Amazon facilities near Chicago staged a pre-Christmas walkout during the busiest time of the year to demand better treatment and higher wages.
"We have been passed over for raises. We are being overworked, even when there is sufficient people to work here," a worker at the DLN2 facility in Cicero said on a livestream posted by the Amazonians United's Chicago chapter, which is not affiliated with Amazon. "We have not received the bonuses we were promised. There are people here who were hired as permanent workers, and then they took their badges away and made them temporary workers. They are staffing this place unsafely, making people work too fast, even though we don't have to."
These workers, who work between 1:20 AM and 11:50 AM, are also demanding a $5 per hour raise. Amazon told TechCrunch that the current starting pay is $15.80 per hour at the two facilities that staged walkouts, DLN2 in Cicero and DIL3 in Gage Park. The Amazonians United speaker also said that the facility used to have 20-minute breaks as a pandemic precaution, but these have been reduced to 15 minutes. However, the pandemic is not over, especially as the omicron variant spreads -- three workers tested positive for COVID yesterday at the Cicero facility, according to the speaker.
Before walking out, the workers presented management with a petition listing their demands, but they said they didn't receive a response, thus prompting the walkout.
The speaker also claimed that workers were told by management that whoever participates in the walkout "might as well leave their badges," meaning that they wouldn't be coming back. It's illegal to take action against the employees of private companies for staging a walkout. But employees reportedly returned after the strikes to find that their schedules were blank and they had been clocked out for the day, sparking concern about retaliation among walkout participants.
“We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. We are proud to offer employees leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity to grow with our company," an Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch in a statement.
The Amazon representative added that no workers are being fired or suspended due to their participation in the walkout. The company said that workers were repeatedly reassured that no retaliation would occur if they protested.
But across the country, Amazon workers have accused the company of trying to quash labor organizing. Last year, Amazonians United co-founder Jonathan Bailey filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), stating that the company violated labor laws by retaliating against him for organizing. He said he was detained and interrogated by a manager for 90 minutes after organizing a walkout. The NLRB found merit to these allegations and filed a federal complaint against Amazon. The company settled, and as part of the settlement agreement, was required to remind employees via emails and on physical bulletin boards that they have the right to organize.
Bailey's complaint to the NLRB was one of 37 against Amazon between February 2020 and March 2021, according to NBC News. But just months after this settlement, Amazon was found to have unlawfully prevented a Staten Island employee from distributing pro-union literature in the break room.
Labor board authorizes new Amazon union vote
Even corporate employees have filed complaints against Amazon with the NLRB. In September, the company settled a complaint from two former Seattle office employees, Maren Costa and Emily Cunningham, who were terminated after advocating for warehouse workers at the onset of the pandemic. The settlement requires Amazon to compensate Costa and Cunningham for lost wages, and once again, notify employees of their right to speak out about issues at Amazon.
But in recent weeks, tensions have escalated further. On December 10 in Edwardsville, Illinois, six Amazon employees were killed when a tornado destroyed the DLI4 facility. For years, Amazon workers weren't allowed to carry cell phones on warehouse floors, but the company relaxed this policy during the pandemic. Recently though, Amazon began reinstating the policy. So, when the National Weather Service issued an emergency alert urging people to take shelter, some Amazon employees had no way of knowing that a lethal storm was on its way.
As Amazon workers in facilities across the country seek better compensation and conditions, the e-commerce giant is in the midst of its busiest time of the year.
"We will work hard to make sure that everyone gets their Christmas gifts, everyone gets their packages," a Chicago warehouse worker told FOX 32 Chicago. "But, you know, we just want to be treated fairly. That's all."
Amazon warehouse workers are walking out and Whole Foods workers are striking
Amazon workers in New York make another attempt at forming a union
Mariella Moon
·Associate Editor
Thu, December 23, 2021, 5:35 AM·2 min read
Former and current warehouse workers at JFK8, Amazon's fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, have refiled an application to hold a vote on unionization. The workers originally filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board back in November, but they had to withdraw it after failing to gather enough signatures to be approved. This time, the organizers were reportedly able to gather over 2,500 worker signatures or half of the 5,000 people employed at the facility.
The workers are hoping to form the Amazon Labor Union, which will be an independent group that's not connected to any major national union. One of their lead organizers is Christian Smalls who led a walkout at JFK8 over the e-commerce giant's handling of COVID safety at the warehouse. Amazon fired Smalls after that, telling CNBC that he "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines." Even so, Smalls is still very much involved in the facility's renewed efforts to unionize. In an email to The Washington Post, he referenced what happened at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse, saying that "long drawn-out voting processes are controlled by the bosses who use that period to lie to, intimidate and threaten the workers into voting no for the union."
Majority of the workers at the company's Bessemer, Alabama facility voted against unionization back in April. However, the election was fraught with controversy, with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — the union the workers were supposed to join — accusing Amazon of interfering with the elections. One of the main issues they pointed out was that the company installed the ballot box in front of the warehouse and in view of security cameras, making workers feel as if their votes were being monitored. After looking into the RWDSU's complaint, the NLRB ordered Amazon to hold another vote.
Amazon has been adamantly opposed to its workers joining unions. When the people at JFK8 first filed a petition to unionize, the e-commerce giant told Engadget in a statement:
The NLRB has confirmed to The Post that it received the group's petition and would be reviewing signatures over the coming days.
Amazon settles with NLRB to give workers power to unionizeMariella Moon
·Associate Editor
Thu, December 23, 2021, 5:35 AM·2 min read
Former and current warehouse workers at JFK8, Amazon's fulfillment center in Staten Island, New York, have refiled an application to hold a vote on unionization. The workers originally filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board back in November, but they had to withdraw it after failing to gather enough signatures to be approved. This time, the organizers were reportedly able to gather over 2,500 worker signatures or half of the 5,000 people employed at the facility.
The workers are hoping to form the Amazon Labor Union, which will be an independent group that's not connected to any major national union. One of their lead organizers is Christian Smalls who led a walkout at JFK8 over the e-commerce giant's handling of COVID safety at the warehouse. Amazon fired Smalls after that, telling CNBC that he "received multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines." Even so, Smalls is still very much involved in the facility's renewed efforts to unionize. In an email to The Washington Post, he referenced what happened at Amazon's Bessemer warehouse, saying that "long drawn-out voting processes are controlled by the bosses who use that period to lie to, intimidate and threaten the workers into voting no for the union."
Majority of the workers at the company's Bessemer, Alabama facility voted against unionization back in April. However, the election was fraught with controversy, with the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) — the union the workers were supposed to join — accusing Amazon of interfering with the elections. One of the main issues they pointed out was that the company installed the ballot box in front of the warehouse and in view of security cameras, making workers feel as if their votes were being monitored. After looking into the RWDSU's complaint, the NLRB ordered Amazon to hold another vote.
Amazon has been adamantly opposed to its workers joining unions. When the people at JFK8 first filed a petition to unionize, the e-commerce giant told Engadget in a statement:
"As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees. Every day we empower people to find ways to improve their jobs, and when they do that we want to make those changes — quickly. That type of continuous improvement is harder to do quickly and nimbly with unions in the middle. The benefits of direct relationships between managers and employees can’t be overstated — these relationships allow every employee’s voice to be heard, not just the voices of a select few. We’ve made great progress in recent years and months in important areas like pay and safety. There are plenty of things that we can keep doing better, and that's our focus — to keep getting better every day."
The NLRB has confirmed to The Post that it received the group's petition and would be reviewing signatures over the coming days.
Dec. 23, 2021
Associated Press
In this March 30, 2021 file photo, a banner encouraging workers to vote in labor balloting is shown at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. AP/JAY REEVES
Under pressure to improve worker rights, Amazon has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to allow its employees to freely organize — and without retaliation.
According to the settlement, the online behemoth Amazon AMZN, +0.02% said it would reach out to its warehouse workers — former and current — via email who were on the job anytime from March 22 to now to notify them of their organizing rights.
The settlement outlines that Amazon workers, which number 750,000 in the U.S., have more room to organize within the buildings. For example, Amazon pledged it will not threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time.
According to the terms of the settlement, the labor board will be able to more easily sue Amazon— without going through a laborious process of administrative hearings — if it found that the online company reneged on its agreement.
“Whether a company has 10 employees or a million employees, it must abide by the National Labor Relations Act,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a statement. “This settlement agreement provides a crucial commitment from Amazon to millions of its workers across the United States that it will not interfere with their right to act collectively to improve their workplace by forming a union or taking other collective action.”
She added that “working people should know that the National Labor Relations Board will vigorously seek to ensure Amazon’s compliance with the settlement and continue to defend the labor rights of all workers.”
Amazon.com Inc., based in Seattle, couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
This year, Amazon has faced organizing efforts at warehouses in Alabama and New York.
In November, the labor board ordered a new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, based on objections to the first vote that took place in April.
The move was a blow to Amazon, which spent about a year aggressively campaigning for warehouse workers in Bessemer to reject the union, which they ultimately did by a wide margin. The board had not yet determined the date for the second election and it hasn’t determined whether it will be conducted in person or by mail.
The campaign is being spearheaded by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Amazon Labor Union, an independent group representing workers in New York’s Staten Island borough, refiled its petition for a union election. The group of workers withdrew its first petition in mid-November to hold a vote to unionize after falling behind the adequate number of workers pledging support.
The organizing drive is also happening during a moment of reckoning across Corporate America as the pandemic and ensuing labor shortage has given employees more leverage to fight for better working conditions and pay. Workers have staged strikes at Kellogg’s U.S. cereal plants as well as at Deere & Co., and at Starbucks to name a few.
Mary Meisenzahl
Thu, December 23, 2021
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Amazon reached a settlement with the NLRB this week.
It agreed to email current and past warehouse workers about their organizing rights.
Amazon continues to face union challenges in some warehouses.
Amazon has to email all current and former warehouse workers information about their rights as part of a new agreement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) The New York Times reported.
The emails are one stipulation in a settlement between Amazon and the government organization that would make it easier for warehouse workers to organize. They will go out to approximately 1 million workers.
The retail giant has been involved in several labor fights recently. There have been more than 75 charges brought to the NLRB accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices since the onset of the pandemic, per the NLRB database. Last month, the agency ordered a union election at an Alabama warehouse be re-held after Amazon's illegal interference made a "free and fair election impossible."
The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) just filed a petition on Wednesday to hold an election at Amazon's Staten Island JFK8 warehouse. The group's petition had 2,500 signatures from the more than 5,000 workers at the warehouse, organizers said.
Worker demands include a return of pandemic policies.
"In light of the increasing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Omicron variant, we are demanding the return of hazard pay and unlimited unpaid time off," The ALU's letter to the site leader read. Amazon previously instituted a $2 per hour pay increase at the beginning of the pandemic, which it eliminated in June 2020. The unlimited time off policy ended in April 2020.
"Our focus remains on listening directly to our employees and continuously improving on their behalf," an Amazon spokesperson previously told Insider. Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Calls mount for changes at Amazon after tornado, but no one commits to IL code revisions
Kelsey Landis, Mike Koziatek
Thu, December 23, 2021
More elected officials on Wednesday called for a review of safety policies at Amazon’s warehouses following a deadly tornado earlier this month, but none have yet committed to leading an investigation into possible building code revisions.
Democratic U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, along with 13 U.S. representatives from Illinois, sent a letter Wednesday to the president and CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, urging him to “develop and implement a stronger emergency action plan at Amazon warehouses.”
Six people died on Dec. 10 in the tornado that hit the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville.
It isn’t the first time a tornado has caused deaths in similarly constructed building, said Larry Tanner, an architectural engineer who worked at Texas Tech University for 20 years testing shelters. For instance, eight people died in a Joplin, Missouri, Home Depot in 2011, Tanner said.
“They all fail similarly in that the winds are sufficient enough from 130 mph to lift up the roof decking, the steel decking, and when you lift those up, you start a chain of failures,” Tanner said. “That same set of dominoes has occurred forever in these storms. The taller the building, the longer the spans, the greater catastrophe.”
“That’s not to say the buildings aren’t built properly. They are built to code,” he added. “You really can’t prevent these buildings from failing under high winds, but what you can do is you can protect the people that are inside the buildings.”
In Edwardsville, the EF-3 tornado hit estimated peak winds of 150 mph, and toppled about 150 yards of roof and concrete walls at the warehouse on Gateway Commerce Drive.
Duckworth and Durbin welcomed an investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, but that investigation will not examine the construction of the structure or whether it met building codes or whether those codes should change, according to an OSHA spokesman.
An Amazon spokeswoman has said the warehouse was built to code.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference held near the warehouses last week that, even if the buildings were up to current standards, codes may need to be updated because of increasingly unstable weather patterns due to climate change.
“It makes us wonder, to say, there are legislators here too, about whether or not we need to change code based upon the climate change that we’re seeing all around us,” Pritzker said in the news conference on Dec. 13. “Suffice to say that’s something we’re deeply concerned about.”
Yet neither Pritzker nor any local elected officials have said they will lead the charge in going beyond whether existing code was followed and investigating how it might be changed.
A spokeswoman for Pritzker has not returned multiple requests for comment since Dec. 15. Edwardsville Mayor Art Risavy could not be reached for comment on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The warehouse’s construction came into question after Amazon officials said the six people who died were not in the building’s shelter in place area. The Edwardsville facility measured 1.1 million square feet, said Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel at a Dec. 13 news conference in nearby Pontoon Beach.
“By the time the (tornado) warning came through, it was a matter of minutes. It moved very quickly,” Nantel said.
Thirty-nine people were in the shelter area on the north side of the building, while the six people who died and a seventh person who was injured were on the south side where there was no shelter, said Amazon senior vice president of global delivery services John Felton at the same news conference. It’s not clear why the workers didn’t make it to the shelter area.
The north and south ends are constructed the same. The shelter area is safer during a tornado because there are no windows there, Nantel said.
State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, urged OSHA to do an audit of building codes. But after OSHA said it doesn’t review building codes, a representative from Stuart’s office said the “important thing” is to “determine if it provides for adequate protection and safety in buildings such as these warehouses during natural disasters.”
Stuart did not return multiple requests for comment on who would be making those determinations.
A representative from Amazon could not be reached for comment on Wednesday regarding the senators’ letter but last week Nantel said the company welcomed all investigators reviewing what happened.
“Obviously we want to go back and look at every aspect of this. There’s always going to be tremendous learning after any type of catastrophic event like this,” Nantel said at the Dec. 13 news conference. “We want to make sure our policies, our practices are consistent with any learnings that we have from this event.”
State Sen. Chris Belt, D-Swansea, said building codes “should be looked into,” but said he hasn’t started an investigation into how codes could be improved. Other metro-east officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Pritzker said at the Dec. 13 news conference he was still focused on recovery but pledged to look at possibilities for revising code.
“We will work on it together, again, to examine what happened here, the effects of the tornado on the building, the architect’s design, the engineer’s design and so on.”
How could codes be changed?
Tanner, the architectural engineer, said it’s relatively easy to construct tornado shelters in warehouses, though he hasn’t heard of any building codes to require them.
In 2015, the International Building Code — a minimum set of building standards followed by most municipalities in the U.S. — updated its recommendations for buildings such as schools where a tornado poses a high risk for loss of life, Tanner said. He worked with school districts to update buildings and make them safer by including shelters in gymnasiums, locker rooms, classrooms and other locations.
“It costs more per square foot, but it’s well worth it,” Tanner said.
Warehouses could be constructed so interior walls are shorter than the exterior walls, making them less likely to collapse. Locker rooms, break rooms or restrooms could be built with reinforced concrete blocks.
Those are things lawmakers could mandate through legislation, he said. Illinois has done it for schools, for instance.
“For those kinds of companies, it’s really a drop in the bucket. It’s really not all that expensive,” Tanner said. “It’s so logical and all these big companies with these big warehouses, they have big bucks, they have big dollars. They have much deeper pockets than school districts, that’s for sure.”
Reporter DeAsia Paige contributed to this report.
Lawmakers' letter to Amazon by Mike Koziatek on Scribd Download this PDF
In this March 30, 2021 file photo, a banner encouraging workers to vote in labor balloting is shown at an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. AP/JAY REEVES
Under pressure to improve worker rights, Amazon has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board to allow its employees to freely organize — and without retaliation.
According to the settlement, the online behemoth Amazon AMZN, +0.02% said it would reach out to its warehouse workers — former and current — via email who were on the job anytime from March 22 to now to notify them of their organizing rights.
The settlement outlines that Amazon workers, which number 750,000 in the U.S., have more room to organize within the buildings. For example, Amazon pledged it will not threaten workers with discipline or call the police when they are engaging in union activity in exterior non-work areas during non-work time.
According to the terms of the settlement, the labor board will be able to more easily sue Amazon— without going through a laborious process of administrative hearings — if it found that the online company reneged on its agreement.
“Whether a company has 10 employees or a million employees, it must abide by the National Labor Relations Act,” said NLRB General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, in a statement. “This settlement agreement provides a crucial commitment from Amazon to millions of its workers across the United States that it will not interfere with their right to act collectively to improve their workplace by forming a union or taking other collective action.”
She added that “working people should know that the National Labor Relations Board will vigorously seek to ensure Amazon’s compliance with the settlement and continue to defend the labor rights of all workers.”
Amazon.com Inc., based in Seattle, couldn’t be reached immediately for comment.
This year, Amazon has faced organizing efforts at warehouses in Alabama and New York.
In November, the labor board ordered a new union election for Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama, based on objections to the first vote that took place in April.
The move was a blow to Amazon, which spent about a year aggressively campaigning for warehouse workers in Bessemer to reject the union, which they ultimately did by a wide margin. The board had not yet determined the date for the second election and it hasn’t determined whether it will be conducted in person or by mail.
The campaign is being spearheaded by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store union.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the Amazon Labor Union, an independent group representing workers in New York’s Staten Island borough, refiled its petition for a union election. The group of workers withdrew its first petition in mid-November to hold a vote to unionize after falling behind the adequate number of workers pledging support.
The organizing drive is also happening during a moment of reckoning across Corporate America as the pandemic and ensuing labor shortage has given employees more leverage to fight for better working conditions and pay. Workers have staged strikes at Kellogg’s U.S. cereal plants as well as at Deere & Co., and at Starbucks to name a few.
Amazon will email 1 million employees to inform them of their right to organize as part of a new settlement with the NLRB
Mary Meisenzahl
Thu, December 23, 2021
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Amazon reached a settlement with the NLRB this week.
It agreed to email current and past warehouse workers about their organizing rights.
Amazon continues to face union challenges in some warehouses.
Amazon has to email all current and former warehouse workers information about their rights as part of a new agreement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) The New York Times reported.
The emails are one stipulation in a settlement between Amazon and the government organization that would make it easier for warehouse workers to organize. They will go out to approximately 1 million workers.
The retail giant has been involved in several labor fights recently. There have been more than 75 charges brought to the NLRB accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices since the onset of the pandemic, per the NLRB database. Last month, the agency ordered a union election at an Alabama warehouse be re-held after Amazon's illegal interference made a "free and fair election impossible."
The Amazon Labor Union (ALU) just filed a petition on Wednesday to hold an election at Amazon's Staten Island JFK8 warehouse. The group's petition had 2,500 signatures from the more than 5,000 workers at the warehouse, organizers said.
Worker demands include a return of pandemic policies.
"In light of the increasing severity of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Omicron variant, we are demanding the return of hazard pay and unlimited unpaid time off," The ALU's letter to the site leader read. Amazon previously instituted a $2 per hour pay increase at the beginning of the pandemic, which it eliminated in June 2020. The unlimited time off policy ended in April 2020.
"Our focus remains on listening directly to our employees and continuously improving on their behalf," an Amazon spokesperson previously told Insider. Amazon did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
An Amazon worker says the company has shortened employee breaks because the pandemic is 'supposedly' over even though new cases continue to pop up
Huileng Tan
Wed, December 22, 2021
Dozens of workers walked off their jobs at two Amazon facilities in the Chicago area.
They are demanding higher wages and longer break times.
Amazon has been scrutinized over labor and workplace safety issues this year.
Amazon warehouse employees at two facilities in the Chicago area have walked off their jobs just days ahead of last-minute Christmas deliveries.
The workers were demanding higher wages and longer break times, according to a video from Amazonians United Chicagoland — a group representing local Amazon workers — posted to Facebook. Dozens of employees participated in the walkouts at Amazon's delivery centers in Gage Park and Cicero on Wednesday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
"We're here demanding a $5 increase for our wages, and as well, a return to the 20-minute breaks that we had during the pandemic," said a worker in a video posted on the Facebook page.
He added that the company had cut five minutes from their break time as the pandemic's "supposedly" over — "yet we got three cases yesterday."
According to Amazon, starting wages at the two facilities are around $16 an hour. The company also said it would not retaliate against employees who joined in the walkout.
"We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so," Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha told Insider. "We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. We are proud to offer employees leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity to grow with our company."
The e-commerce giant has been under scrutiny for labor and workplace safety issues this year.
Last month, six people died when Amazon warehouse in Illinois collapsed was hit by a tornado. Employees told Insider tornado drills were rarely held in the hit warehouse. A driver also said he was told to continue delivering packages even though there were tornado warnings in the area, Bloomberg reported.
Issues with the company's payroll system have also caused employees on leave to be systematically underpaid, The New York Times reported in October.
Huileng Tan
Wed, December 22, 2021
Dozens of workers walked off their jobs at two Amazon facilities in the Chicago area.
They are demanding higher wages and longer break times.
Amazon has been scrutinized over labor and workplace safety issues this year.
Amazon warehouse employees at two facilities in the Chicago area have walked off their jobs just days ahead of last-minute Christmas deliveries.
The workers were demanding higher wages and longer break times, according to a video from Amazonians United Chicagoland — a group representing local Amazon workers — posted to Facebook. Dozens of employees participated in the walkouts at Amazon's delivery centers in Gage Park and Cicero on Wednesday, according to the Chicago Tribune.
"We're here demanding a $5 increase for our wages, and as well, a return to the 20-minute breaks that we had during the pandemic," said a worker in a video posted on the Facebook page.
He added that the company had cut five minutes from their break time as the pandemic's "supposedly" over — "yet we got three cases yesterday."
According to Amazon, starting wages at the two facilities are around $16 an hour. The company also said it would not retaliate against employees who joined in the walkout.
"We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so," Amazon spokesman Richard Rocha told Insider. "We respect the rights of employees to protest and recognize their legal right to do so. We are proud to offer employees leading pay, competitive benefits, and the opportunity to grow with our company."
The e-commerce giant has been under scrutiny for labor and workplace safety issues this year.
Last month, six people died when Amazon warehouse in Illinois collapsed was hit by a tornado. Employees told Insider tornado drills were rarely held in the hit warehouse. A driver also said he was told to continue delivering packages even though there were tornado warnings in the area, Bloomberg reported.
Issues with the company's payroll system have also caused employees on leave to be systematically underpaid, The New York Times reported in October.
Calls mount for changes at Amazon after tornado, but no one commits to IL code revisions
Kelsey Landis, Mike Koziatek
Thu, December 23, 2021
More elected officials on Wednesday called for a review of safety policies at Amazon’s warehouses following a deadly tornado earlier this month, but none have yet committed to leading an investigation into possible building code revisions.
Democratic U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin, along with 13 U.S. representatives from Illinois, sent a letter Wednesday to the president and CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, urging him to “develop and implement a stronger emergency action plan at Amazon warehouses.”
Six people died on Dec. 10 in the tornado that hit the Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville.
It isn’t the first time a tornado has caused deaths in similarly constructed building, said Larry Tanner, an architectural engineer who worked at Texas Tech University for 20 years testing shelters. For instance, eight people died in a Joplin, Missouri, Home Depot in 2011, Tanner said.
“They all fail similarly in that the winds are sufficient enough from 130 mph to lift up the roof decking, the steel decking, and when you lift those up, you start a chain of failures,” Tanner said. “That same set of dominoes has occurred forever in these storms. The taller the building, the longer the spans, the greater catastrophe.”
“That’s not to say the buildings aren’t built properly. They are built to code,” he added. “You really can’t prevent these buildings from failing under high winds, but what you can do is you can protect the people that are inside the buildings.”
In Edwardsville, the EF-3 tornado hit estimated peak winds of 150 mph, and toppled about 150 yards of roof and concrete walls at the warehouse on Gateway Commerce Drive.
Duckworth and Durbin welcomed an investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, but that investigation will not examine the construction of the structure or whether it met building codes or whether those codes should change, according to an OSHA spokesman.
An Amazon spokeswoman has said the warehouse was built to code.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said at a news conference held near the warehouses last week that, even if the buildings were up to current standards, codes may need to be updated because of increasingly unstable weather patterns due to climate change.
“It makes us wonder, to say, there are legislators here too, about whether or not we need to change code based upon the climate change that we’re seeing all around us,” Pritzker said in the news conference on Dec. 13. “Suffice to say that’s something we’re deeply concerned about.”
Yet neither Pritzker nor any local elected officials have said they will lead the charge in going beyond whether existing code was followed and investigating how it might be changed.
A spokeswoman for Pritzker has not returned multiple requests for comment since Dec. 15. Edwardsville Mayor Art Risavy could not be reached for comment on Tuesday or Wednesday.
The warehouse’s construction came into question after Amazon officials said the six people who died were not in the building’s shelter in place area. The Edwardsville facility measured 1.1 million square feet, said Amazon spokeswoman Kelly Nantel at a Dec. 13 news conference in nearby Pontoon Beach.
“By the time the (tornado) warning came through, it was a matter of minutes. It moved very quickly,” Nantel said.
Thirty-nine people were in the shelter area on the north side of the building, while the six people who died and a seventh person who was injured were on the south side where there was no shelter, said Amazon senior vice president of global delivery services John Felton at the same news conference. It’s not clear why the workers didn’t make it to the shelter area.
The north and south ends are constructed the same. The shelter area is safer during a tornado because there are no windows there, Nantel said.
State Rep. Katie Stuart, D-Edwardsville, urged OSHA to do an audit of building codes. But after OSHA said it doesn’t review building codes, a representative from Stuart’s office said the “important thing” is to “determine if it provides for adequate protection and safety in buildings such as these warehouses during natural disasters.”
Stuart did not return multiple requests for comment on who would be making those determinations.
A representative from Amazon could not be reached for comment on Wednesday regarding the senators’ letter but last week Nantel said the company welcomed all investigators reviewing what happened.
“Obviously we want to go back and look at every aspect of this. There’s always going to be tremendous learning after any type of catastrophic event like this,” Nantel said at the Dec. 13 news conference. “We want to make sure our policies, our practices are consistent with any learnings that we have from this event.”
State Sen. Chris Belt, D-Swansea, said building codes “should be looked into,” but said he hasn’t started an investigation into how codes could be improved. Other metro-east officials did not respond to requests for comment.
Pritzker said at the Dec. 13 news conference he was still focused on recovery but pledged to look at possibilities for revising code.
“We will work on it together, again, to examine what happened here, the effects of the tornado on the building, the architect’s design, the engineer’s design and so on.”
How could codes be changed?
Tanner, the architectural engineer, said it’s relatively easy to construct tornado shelters in warehouses, though he hasn’t heard of any building codes to require them.
In 2015, the International Building Code — a minimum set of building standards followed by most municipalities in the U.S. — updated its recommendations for buildings such as schools where a tornado poses a high risk for loss of life, Tanner said. He worked with school districts to update buildings and make them safer by including shelters in gymnasiums, locker rooms, classrooms and other locations.
“It costs more per square foot, but it’s well worth it,” Tanner said.
Warehouses could be constructed so interior walls are shorter than the exterior walls, making them less likely to collapse. Locker rooms, break rooms or restrooms could be built with reinforced concrete blocks.
Those are things lawmakers could mandate through legislation, he said. Illinois has done it for schools, for instance.
“For those kinds of companies, it’s really a drop in the bucket. It’s really not all that expensive,” Tanner said. “It’s so logical and all these big companies with these big warehouses, they have big bucks, they have big dollars. They have much deeper pockets than school districts, that’s for sure.”
Reporter DeAsia Paige contributed to this report.
Lawmakers' letter to Amazon by Mike Koziatek on Scribd Download this PDF
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