7/20/2023 0 Comments Amazon suspending deliveries“Smoke and fumes rise,” a warehouse worker who participated in the protest action told the WSWS the day after. The next day, dozens of workers who protested discovered that they had been suspended from work. However, many have indicated strong opposition to Amazon’s actions, and several workers said that they were not informed that the protest action was taking place, almost completely unaware of the details. The majority of JFK8 night-shift workers had returned to work before the protest. The protest action eventually broke up with some workers returning to work while others left the facility. Roughly 100 workers marched to the offices of JFK8 management and confronted warehouse managers. They demanded that all employees be sent home with pay until the facility was entirely safe for workers to return to work. Management’s announcement caused an eruption of anger among numerous workers, concerned over their safety and potential health risks. Several workers are reported to have had trouble breathing and one person was sent to the hospital. Our representatives should have been here stating what was going on.”Īfter over two hours, management instructed workers that it was safe to go to work, despite the warehouse reportedly still smelling of smoke and other unknown fumes. One worker told the WSWS, “We didn’t know what was going on. Warehouse safety personnel, who are supposed to be stationed at entrances during such an incident, were nowhere to be found. Workers received little to no information about what was happening, reporting that standard safety protocols were not being enforced. Night-shift workers, arriving shortly after the dismissal of the day shift, were directed by warehouse managers to the facility’s cafeteria and told to wait for further instructions. “The day shift was almost over anyway, so they thought they might as well send us home.” Workers also reported that they were not allowed to use nearby fire exits but had to use turnstiles to “badge out” before leaving the facility. “This was not surprising,” one worker told the WSWS. Workers were eventually told to evacuate the facility after management saw the fire firsthand, and they were sent home with pay. The worker told the WSWS that during past fire alarms, despite work stations powering down, management instructed workers to, “Stay at your stations while we investigate.” ![]() Keeping workers at their stations during an emergency is apparently standard operating procedure at JFK8. One worker, a stower in the warehouse, told the World Socialist Web Site Tuesday that management, responding to the fire alarm, initially told day-shift workers to remain at their work stations. As shown in several videos taken by warehouse workers and posted on social media, the blaze was significant and not isolated from the rest of the facility a clear danger to those working inside. The fire started in a trash compactor inside the building around 4 p.m. The International Amazon Workers Voice calls on all workers to oppose the blatant victimization of these workers and demand their immediate reinstatement with full back pay. Amazon's JFK 8 facility on New York City's Staten Island on the evening of Octo
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