Amazon Employees Prone Put At Risk Of Coronavirus On Prime Day

In the opinion of its own employees, Amazon endangers their health through so-called Prime Day. The world’s largest online mail-order company recently exerted massive pressure in its US warehouses, as it did before the coronavirus pandemic.

As reported by the US business service Bloomberg, citing statements made by employees of an Amazon shipping center in the US state of New York, which they brought before the court as part of the hearing of a lawsuit by other Amazon employees, the mail-order company had given false information to the public.

The plaintiffs are now accusing Amazon of having started again to put massive pressure on the employees in the US warehouses in preparation for the “Prime Day” which will take place on October 13 and 14. In order to accelerate the processing of orders, Amazon has started to take various measures again, as it did before the spread of the novel coronavirus.

Amazon trims employees back to “productivity”

The employees were driven by superiors in conversations that were about increasing their productivity. They were also warned that if their quotas were not met, they would run the risk of being fired by Amazon. Actually, Amazon had claimed a few months ago that employees would be given more time so that they would not be in danger of being unable to take the necessary protective measures against infection with Covid-19 due to high pressure. The group explained to the allegations that it had begun to reintroduce the so-called “productivity feedback”, but asserted that only a small part of the workforce was affected around five percent. The internal processes have also been optimized to ensure the safety of employees. In this way, employees should still have enough time to keep their distance from colleagues and disinfect their workplaces whenever this is necessary.

Amazon is currently benefiting from massively increased demand because more and more customers in the USA are also making purchases online. They are trying to avoid a coronavirus infection risk that could arise from visiting retail stores. At the same time, this also increases the workload of Amazon employees in the shipping centers. The special promotions for “Prime Day” are likely to have increased the pressure as more orders were placed.