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Article

30 Mar 2020

Author:
Isobel Asher Hamilton, Business Insider

Amazon warehouse workers in New York will strike after an employee tested positive for coronavirus

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Close on 100 Amazon workers are planning to walk out of a Staten Island on Monday in protest of the company's policies on coronavirus... Chris Smalls, a management assistant in the warehouse and lead organizer of the strike... said the strikers will not return to work until their demands — that Amazon shut down the warehouse for extra cleaning and give workers paid time off while it does so — are met... Smalls said that communication about which workers are in quarantine is poor. He himself is in quarantine as he came into contact with the worker who tested positive, and he said that only "a select few of the general managers," as well as people who worked on the same side of the building as the infected worker were informed of the diagnosis. 

... An Amazon spokeswoman... [said] Smalls was "alleging many misleading things."... She claimed Smalls' comments on Amazon's enhanced cleaning and sanitation measures, and his remarks about "leave options" were not correct... "Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable. We have taken extreme measures to keep people safe, tripling down on deep cleaning, procuring safety supplies that are available, and changing processes to ensure those in our buildings are keeping safe distances."... Workers told Business Insider that the sanitation materials often run out, and are sometimes stolen.

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