The strikes follow each other and look alike at Amazon. More than 300 employees of the group in the United States have agreed not to go to their workplace from Tuesday, April 21, to request an improvement in sanitary conditions facing the Covid-19 in warehouses. It is "The largest mass action by workers to date, as frustrations mount over the company's failure to protect workers and public health from the coronavirus epidemic", said the Athena Alliance (National Alliance of Human and Social Sciences), a group of associations, in a press release published on Monday.
The movement was launched three days before an online strike by the group's coders and engineers.
The American group specializing in online commerce has been accused since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic of not enough protecting its employees, but also of having, in the United States, dismissed employees who had led protest movements.
"For weeks, Amazon workers (…) sound the alarm about dangerous conditions in warehouses ", said the Athena Alliance in this press release, referring to 130 warehouses where workers contracted the Covid-19, some of which "With more than 30 confirmed cases".
Measures promised and not always respected
"Every day we have to make an impossible choice: go to an insecure workplace or risk losing a salary check in the heart of a global recession"said Jaylen Camp, an employee of the Amazon platform at Romulus, Michigan, quoted in the release.
"Rather than taking real steps to protect our health, Amazon prefers to dodge, lie and fire people who speak out. We will not be intimidated. Our health and that of everyone is too important. "
Two weeks ago Amazon announced the distribution of millions of masks and the implementation of temperature controls on all its American and European sites. But, according to the organization, the implementation of these measures "Has been questioned repeatedly by workers in the field".
Warehouses and logistics centers are in high demand due to containment measures designed to stop the spread of the virus. The needs are such that Amazon has undertaken to recruit 175,000 people in the United States.