(CNN Business) – Amazon warehouses are facing a growing wave of coronavirus cases with at least 10 facilities affected so far, according to reports from Amazon and local US media.
A person who works at the Amazon Staten Island, New York fulfillment center tested positive for the new coronavirus, the online retail giant told CNN Business Tuesday night. The person, who was the last to physically work on March 11, is in quarantine and recovering, Amazon said.
That case marks the second to affect Amazon warehouses in New York. It occurs a week after the first reported case at any Amazon facility in the United States, in Queens, NY. The company also confirmed a case at a facility in Joliet, Illinois on Wednesday afternoon. Other positive cases have been reported at Amazon facilities in Moreno Valley, California; Jacksonville, Florida; Shepherdsville, Kentucky .; Brownstown, Michigan; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Katy, Texas; and Wallingford, Connecticut.
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Amazon has temporarily closed some sites, such as the Queens location, but has largely refrained from mass closings. The company told CNN that it is taking “extreme measures to ensure the safety of employees at our site. [s]”
That includes regularly disinfecting door handles, elevator buttons, lockers and touch screens, Amazon said, as well as shift changes and chairs in break rooms.
The spread of the virus within Amazon’s massive logistics operation can only increase anxiety among workers who previously told CNN Business that they felt Amazon should be doing more to protect the hundreds of thousands at its U.S. storage facilities. USA
The additional cases also threaten to interrupt shipments and delay deliveries, even as millions of Americans become increasingly dependent on the service as they are told to leave their homes as little as possible. The company is already warning its website visitors of longer delivery times and encouraging customers to select shipments without haste if their needs are not urgent.
A CNN Business review of the Amazon website on Wednesday morning showed delivery dates for mid-April for Amazon’s white-label toilet paper. Digital thermometers, according to the site, could be delivered in early May.
Amazon is experiencing spikes in demand that are comparable to increasing peak holiday periods like Black Friday, Jay Carney, Amazon’s senior vice president of global corporate affairs, said in an interview with CNpy Poppy Harlow last week. In response, the company is increasing hiring.
“We are increasing employment by 100,000 in the same way that we do for seasonal periods like the holidays, when we need additional workers,” Carney said.
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Before the dramatic increase in confirmed cases in the United States, Amazon represented a whopping 39% of the e-commerce industry, according to research firm eMarketer. Now that number could increase further as Americans stop visiting physical stores.
That has increased pressure on Amazon’s own workers, some of whom have accused the company of “recklessly endangering” employees by failing to give them paid time off. Earlier this week, Chicago-area warehouse workers said they successfully applied for paid time off, in an update to the policy affecting Amazon part-time and temporary workers across the country, but still struggling. for that leave to be counted separately from sick leave.
A worker at the Staten Island facility told CNN Business on Wednesday morning that despite confirming the positive case to the media, Amazon had not notified workers on the site via email, text message, call or update in the application for company employees, pointing to a lack of internal transparency.
“I realize that we are all in unexplored territory, but yes, I would have appreciated knowing about the infected person through Amazon’s Human Resources Department and not through Reddit or Vice,” said the worker.
An Amazon spokesperson told CNN Business: “We verbally communicate with employees at socially distanced small group meetings.” The spokesperson has yet to respond to a follow-up question about how the company has contacted employees who have not yet arrived for their next shift.
Workers previously told CNN Business that Amazon’s social distancing policies are unrealistic in warehouses, where difficult conditions in locker areas force employees to “walk sideways” when they cross paths.
Rina Cummings, a worker at the Staten Island facility, told CNN Business that she felt a lack of control over the situation, saying that few are washing their hands and that “no one really comes to ask people if they’re okay, if they feel sick. I feel like they are not as proactive as they should be. ”
This month, Amazon said that all quarantined employees would receive a two-week payment, and that Amazon contractors who tested positive for the virus could request up to a two-week payment from a $ 25 million relief fund that the company has established.
In an internal memo published on Amazon’s corporate blog dated Saturday, director Jeff Bezos said the company has placed orders for “millions of face masks” for employees and contractors.
“Masks are still rare throughout the world and right now governments are directing them to the most needy facilities, such as hospitals and clinics,” he said. “When our turn comes for the masks, our first priority will be to put them in the hands of our employees and partners who work to bring essential products to people.”
For now, that means Amazon warehouse workers and delivery people remain some of the most exposed, working on the front lines of the crisis in hopes of earning a paycheck and ensuring that households can continue to receive soap and paper on your door.
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