Poorly treated employs at Amazon

Amazon gets away with a lot more than it should. Amazon is a big corporation run by Jeff Bezos. They make millions of dollars by selling products online. Many people use Amazon daily giving employees a lot to do. Thinking their employees are treated well is the wrong idea.

There was an unsafe gas leak at Amazon. The author explains what Amazon did when the gas leak started: ¨The company said that it ceased operations for about 1 1/2 hours and that employees were moved to a break room away from the gas leak¨ (Sonnemaker 7). They kept workers in an unsafe area saying that they were safe about it. There is no way to keep working safely in a gas leak. The author explains the workers´ point of view: ¨Workers accused Amazon management of refusing to stop operations — even after a 911 dispatcher instructed workers to evacuate the building — telling workers to use personal time if they wanted to leave¨ (Sonnemaker 7). Employees were told to use personal time for the gas leak, and in reality they should have just been allowed to go home. The risk of an explosion if the gas leak was flammable is high. Carbon monoxide will replace oxygen with Co gas leading to poisoning. This is a huge safety risk.

Many injuries are reported at Amazon. Workers were frequently injured. The author shows, ¨They also called attention to reports of high injury rates at the facility there, which were found to be three times the national average for warehouses, based on the company’s injury reports to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)¨ (Saniato 5). Amazon's injury rate is three times the average according to OSHA. The average is about 2.9 cases per 100 employees according to the OSHA. Amazon tries to back this up: ¨We take an aggressive stance on recording injuries no matter how big or small¨ (Saniato 5). They are trying to get away with the fact that they have many injured people by saying it was ok. In one person's case, ¨´I take Tylenol or Aleve two to three times a week,´ the worker said. ´Almost every night when I wake up, I have really bad, sharp, needle-like lower back pain. I’ve had to use my paid time off a lot just to recover or work half days´¨ (Saniato 28). Amazon was forcing an injured employee to keep working through the pain. They had hurt their back and had to use vacation time just to help heal their back. A person should not have to use vacation time just to heal an injury.

Employees at Amazon are unfairly treated. Annoyed by the small breaks, employees made a petition: ¨The petition called on Amazon to consolidate workers’ two 15-minute breaks into a 30-minute one. Workers say it can take up to 15 minutes just to walk to and from the warehouse break room¨ (Saniato 5). Workers get about a 15 minute break to eat and take a break. A school gives more time to students to take a break. It takes an employee about 15 min just to walk to the break room. This might lead to not eating because they can't get to the break room in time. Amazon is not giving their employees a good amount of time to take a break. Employees often get in trouble for things they can´t help:¨When packages, especially envelopes with liquid, burst on the conveyor belt, Cummings often has to stop the belt to clean up the mess, but is still expected to hit her hourly rate. She’s been written up once for missing her rate because several of these incidents happened in the same week¨(Saniato 10). A company should not be able to write up anyone for things they can't control. This is what Amazon is getting away with. This employee is getting told to do extra work and not have it count towards their hours or payment.

Amazon employees aren't treated the way they should be. Amazon's gas leak was treated unsafely for employees and everyone in the warehouse. Many more injuries are reported in the Amazon warehouse than any others. Employees are treated as if they were machines and not human beings. Putting this information is the start of change for the workers at Amazon.

Works Cited

Sainato, Michael. ¨‘I'm not a robot’: Amazon workers condemn unsafe, grueling conditions at warehouse.¨ The Guardian,https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse. Accessed 20 September 2021.

Sonnemaker, Tyler. ¨2 new investigations find that some Amazon warehouses have injury rates as high as triple the industry average.¨ Insider, https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-unsafe-working-conditions-warehouses-fulfillment-centers-2019-11. Accessed 20 September 2021.