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AMAZON SAYS NEARLY 20,000 of its frontline US staff have tested positive or have been presumed positive for Covid-19.
But the online retail behemoth, revealing the data for the first time, said the infection rate of its employees was well below that seen in the general US population.
The disclosure comes after months of pressure from Amazon workers and labour groups calling for the company to divulge the coronavirus numbers.
Amazon said in a corporate blog that it provided the data as part of its effort to keep employees informed, and to share details and best practices with governments and other companies.
”We hope other large companies will also release their detailed learnings and case rates because doing so will help all of us,” Amazon said.
“This is not an arena where companies should compete — this is an arena where companies should help one another.”
The Seattle-based company said that it examined data 1 from March to 19 September on 1.37 million workers at Amazon and Whole Foods Market across the US.
It said it compared the Covid-19 case rates to the general population, as reported by Johns Hopkins University for the same period.
Based on that analysis, if the rate among Amazon and Whole Foods employees were the same as that for the general population, it estimated it would have seen 33,952 cases among its workforce. That is 42% higher that Amazon’s actual rate.
50,000 tests per day
The company also said it is conducting thousands of tests each day, which will grow to 50,000 tests per day across 650 sites by November.
Companies have no legal obligation to publicly reveal how many of their workers have contracted the virus and few are doing so.
Employers do have to provide a safe working environment, which means they must alert staff if they might have been exposed to the virus, according to guidelines from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal agency that enforces workplace safety.
Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents grocery and meatpacking workers, called Amazon’s disclosure as “the most damning evidence we have seen that corporate America has completely failed to protect our country’s frontline workers in this pandemic”.
UFCW is calling for immediate action by federal regulators and a full congressional investigation.
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Amazon, minimum wage, maximum work, the stories of how the business is run from the top down are absolutely terrible. But to those at the top its the bottom line, profit only, workers are dispensible.
They could easily afford to give a living wage and higher and still generate profits, they pay little or no tax and then treat workers with contempt.
Many businesses now operate this way. As Gecko said Greed is Good.
@PeeedOff: The Bourgeois rule supreme
@PeeedOff: that what shareholders demand and rightly so.
@PeeedOff:
Workers should get the true share of their production. Workers produce this wealth.
@DeWitt: that’s an old position thankfully coming to an end. Shareholders no longer rule the world.
@PeeedOff: …but everybody keep buying on Amazon…. (myself included)
@PeeedOff: Reddit data: If you’re starting out as a software engineer at Amazon, you can expect to pull down $108,000 in base salary, $70,000 in stock options, and anywhere from $64,000 to $44,000 as a bonus (which averaged to $51,142, based on the total number of respondents).Jun 21, 2019
Entry-Level Amazon Tech Recruits Earn Huge Salariesinsights.dice.com ›
@PeeedOff: Salaries at Amazon.com Inc range from an average of $59,734 to $152,688 a year. Amazon.com Inc employees with the job title Senior Solutions Architect make the most with an average annual salary of $155,729, while employees with the title Warehouse Associate make the least with an average annual salary of $29,192.
Here’s the thing. If people are upset at the way Amazon treats then stop using them. I often find things are cheaper elsewhere, it just takes a bit of searching. Or maybe support your local businesses. Because when they’re gone, they’re gone.
@Joe Griffin: exactly I check elsewhere and often find what I am looking for cheaper without having to convert to £ or $.
@Joe Griffin: I have been doing that throughout the year. It takes a little more effort but at least its coming from the shops you used to go to before the pandemic.
Amazon …. if this is the future of online retailing think I’ll stick to supporting bricks and mortar shops.
Amazon’s slogan “from A to Z and you’re done”. They got that right.
It makes you wonder how accurate the tests are too. There’s a lot of reports to say these PCR tests may bring up false positives and pick up other existing coronaviruses. Are these people showing symptoms? It’s a pity we never get full information for the wider context.
@Lauren McKeown: Gemma is calling
@Canyon: Oh…Good one…!
Why all the negative comments? I’d love to bash Amazon as much another, and then of course still buy plenty of them anyway. However the article actually states that a lot less Amazon employees -about half- test positive for corona than the average number among the US population.
So this would this not mean they’re doing something right? Also who knows how they contacted the virus, is Amazon responsible if their employees catch the virus outside work? It seems the testing is done so they can prevent the positive cases from infecting other employees.
@Lars: Amazon employ a million people in the US, 20,000 is 2%. Official estimates say 2-4% of the US population could have gotten back. Worldometer says 2.2%. So Amazon are no safer than anywhere else.
This is similar to the foxconn suicide story a few years back. There were maybe a dozen reported suicides, but given the size of the company, the suicide rate was much lower than the Chinese average.
Not saying either is positive, but people should read the story before taking out the pitchforks.
@Lars: yeh but the outrage! What are we to do with our outrage today? This sounds really bad (until you read the article) so we need to scream our heads off… and then proceed to spend e150 on Amazon…
Amazon is a truly hideous company.
Plenty of nursing homes in Ireland with a similar philosophy to amazon, max hrs minimum wages and no benefits. Impossible management to deal with with too
https://mkorostoff.github.io/1-pixel-wealth/
I stumbled upon this graph earlier in the year, it really puts Jeff Bozos in a bad light with the sheer scale of his wealth. That he made billions off the pandemic while his employees are on a fairly low wage for their work is the icing on the cake.
Brilliant Company. Top class service.
It would be interesting to see such data from the Irish front line, how many doctors/nurses/care workers/other hospital staff, how many postmen, how many police women? How many delivery drivers, how many supermarket workers/other retail workers, how many meat processors/ other food processing workers etc etc etc
Who’s the richest man on the planet?
Exploiting low paid workers is all part of the evil of capitalism.
Jeff bozo gets a billion dollars for every employee infected. His toilet is made of solid gold and he wraps his sushi in $100 bills.
WTF MADNESS
How many died?
have your say