Amazon drops $2 coronavirus pay rise for warehouse workers as CEO Jeff Bezos' fortune nears $150 billion
Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images "Almost everyone is very disappointed and angry," said one Indiana worker whose warehouse now has over 30 confirmed cases. "We want the pay until the masks go away," they added.
An Amazon spokeswoman said wearing masks is recommended by the Centers for Disease Control. She added that Amazon's $15 starting hourly pay for warehouse workers, introduced in 2018, is better than the retail competition."To thank employees and help meet increased demand, we've paid our team and partners nearly $800 million extra since COVID-19 started while continuing to offer full benefits from day one of employment," she said. "With demand stabilized, we've returned to our industry-leading starting wage of $15 an hour. We're proud that our minimum wage is more than what most others offer even after their temporary increases in recent months, and we hope they'll do the right thing for the long term and bring their minimum pay closer to ours." But for some, the danger inside warehouses seems far from abating, and a lack of communication from management makes them fearful that the danger level could be higher than they know. As coronavirus cases spread to the US, Amazon began to notify workers about cases in their warehouses via text, telling them when a worker who tested positive for COVID-19 was last on-site. At first, the company notified workers about each new case, but as it started to spread more voraciously at some sites it stopped giving specific numbers, as reported by theOne California worker told Business Insider they received a text on May 18 notifying them a confirmed case had been on-site on April 7. "Not only should we continuing receiving the hazard pay but we deserve more than $2," the same worker added. "They just notify us of a new case but don't provide what shift or department involved," said one Tennessee-based warehouse worker. "They say they reach out to people they can verify via camera who were close to the infected person." "[Their] policy is to wait and see who gets infected, report it via text or call and carry on with business as usual. It's sad," they added. An Amazon spokeswoman, asked how the firm monitors the spread of the virus, said: "Our top concern is ensuring the health and safety of our employees, and we expect to invest approximately $4 billion from April to June on COVID-related initiatives to get products to customers and keep employees safe." She continued: "This includes spending more than $800 million in the first half of the year on COVID-19 safety measures, with investments in personal protective equipment, enhanced cleaning of our facilities, less efficient process paths that better allow for effective social distancing, higher wages for hourly teams, and developing our own COVID-19 testing capabilities, etc."In some warehouses, the company appears to have been able to manage demand sufficiently that it's now asking workers to take time off. The Indiana worker told Business Insider that in their warehouse managers are offering voluntary time off or "VTO." The way VTO works is workers get sent a text offering unpaid time off when the warehouse has an ebb in demand. They then log in through the employee portal, an app called A to Z, to claim which days they want on a first-come first-served basis. The worker told Business Insider the offer of VTO generally runs out within about 15 minutes of going out, with workers especially eager to snap up the time off now that their unlimited UPT has been cut.Amazon went on an initial 175,000 worker hiring spree , and in some locations this process seems to be continuing. One UK-based worker said their warehouse is still recruiting temporary contract workers on rolling contracts. This week more news emerged that Amazon is trying to rejuvenate business for sellers damaged by the coronavirus. The company is reportedly planning a summer sale to "drive excitement and jump-start sales," per a company notice seen by
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