After Vacaville workers test positive, Amazon releases coronavirus data
The data released by Amazon this week may do little to satisfy critics who say the retail giant isn't doing enough to protect warehouse workers and delivery drivers.
(Image via Amazon)
Technology company and retail giant Amazon says more than 19,000 employees across its company have tested positive for the novel coronavirus COVID-19 since the start of the global health pandemic earlier this year.
In a blog published on the company's website this week, Amazon said it predicted around 33,000 of its 1.3 million Amazon and Whole Foods Market employees would test positive for COVID-19 between March and mid-September. The number was formulated based on data related to COVID-19 infections among the general population as released by Johns Hopkins University.
Its estimate was off, Amazon said, with 19,816 employees testing positive since the start of the pandemic.
In California, Amazon said around 1.5 percent of its workforce tested positive for COVID-19 between March and mid-September, according to the company's data. That was lower than its estimate of 2.5 percent of its workforce and slightly below the state's overall infection rate of 2 percent of the population, Amazon said.
Amazon said it may be overstating the data because the company included both confirmed and presumed infections of COVID-19.
"Amazon employees are regularly screened for symptoms and are increasingly being tested at work, regardless of whether they are showing symptoms, in order to identify asymptomatic cases," the company said. "A positive test does not mean someone became infected as a result of their employment with Amazon — these individuals can be exposed in many ways outside of work."
Amazon didn't break down its data between its subsidiary companies, nor did it delineate between front-line warehouse workers and other employees. The company operates several distribution warehouses throughout Northern California, including one in Vacaville where at least two employees tested positive between March and mid-June, according to a source.
After the second Vacaville warehouse employee tested positive, Amazon sent a text message to workers reminding them of various safety measures that were implemented, including a requirement that employees wear face masks and employ social distancing measures — the same guidance issued by federal and state health officials to workers.
Amazon didn't close its warehouses or reduce its hours — steps that rival companies did shortly after the health pandemic began — a lapse that stoked the ire of several local warehouse workers who complained that the company was ostensibly putting profits ahead of safety. And at least one employee said the Vacaville warehouse didn't rigorously enforce the company's own guidance when it came to face masks and social distancing.
Similar claims were made by Amazon employees in other states, with the retail giant facing a handful of lawsuits that alleged the company did little to protect its warehouse workers, drivers and other front-line staff.
Amazon said it offered workers unlimited time off if they had concerns about the coronavirus. But that time off didn't come with a paycheck in most cases — workers were directed to file for unemployment benefits if they took advantage of the company's pandemic-related leave policy, according to a source — which forced some to continue working in warehouses even when they felt it was unsafe to do so.
"It's frightening, but you have to put on a smile and you go to work because you need the income," an Amazon worker named Rosie told the website Vox. "It's like I'm risking my life for a dollar."
Since the start of the pandemic, Amazon's normally busy warehouses have ramped up thanks in large part to shelter-at-home orders issued in California and elsewhere. With brick-and-mortar stores closed, consumers increasingly turned to Amazon for essential and non-essential purchases, driving up orders and increasing workloads for warehouse workers and delivery drivers.
In some locations, Amazon and Whole Foods Market workers organized strikes after employees were fired for speaking out about unsafe workplace conditions. In late March, a warehouse worker in New York was fired for organizing one of those protests; two other employees were fired the following month for posting criticism on Twitter that claimed Amazon wasn't doing enough to protect workers and offering to match donations to staff who were striking in some locations.
In May, one of Amazon's top technology executives abruptly resigned in protest over the firings of his colleagues.
"It's a matter of fact that workers are saying they're at risk in the warehouses," Timothy Bray, Amazon's former vice president of cloud computing, wrote in a blog post. Amazon's cloud computing business is one of its top revenue generators.
"Firing whistle-blowers isn’t just a side-effect of macroeconomic forces, nor is it intrinsic to the function of free markets," Bray continued. "It's evidence of a vein of toxicity running through the company culture. I choose neither to serve nor drink that poison."
To counter that narrative, Amazon invited a pair of New York Times journalists and other reporters to tour one of its Seattle-area warehouses. Though it was clear Amazon at that warehouse tried to maintain social distancing measures and other safety precautions, "even with work stations spaced far apart, employees pass closely by each other at times, just as you might see at a grocery store or on a sidewalk," the Times report said.
The Times published its story on June 9. Less than a month later, at least two of its Vacaville warehouse workers tested positive for COVID-19.
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