The Amazon Labor Union held a rally outside the JFK8 Fulfilmment Center in Staten Island Wednesday evening — in the midst of the retail giant’s “Prime Day” promotion — to protest what they say are unsafe working conditions that have persisted for years.
Workers from other Amazon sites in the Hudson Valley, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and even a Whole Foods in Philadelphia — the first location of that Amazon-owned grocer to unionize — came to show support for the rally at the warehouse near the Goethals Bridge.
The temperature inside the sprawling, 855,000 square foot facility is untenable according to Amazon employees at the rally, who are calling on the corporation to provide adequate air conditioning.
“A couple weeks ago I ended up getting a heat stroke in the building,” said Adrian Easterling, an inventory picker at the warehouse, who said the boiling heat and lack of proper airflow led to his medical episode. “Amazon is a multi-trillion dollar company. They should be providing us with water and proper AC and air that’s not filled with dust. It’s disheartening.”
Easterling said his missed shift was covered by Amazon but that he had to pay for the medical bills incurred from his hospital visit.
One picker at JFK8, Yackisha Nebot Lopez, pulled out a “Qwik Stik” electrolyte powder pack that Amazon gives out to help workers get through scorching hot days inside the warehouse. She and her colleagues at the rally stated they’d prefer adequate air conditioning in the buildings instead.
“They treat us like garbage. We work in the sweltering heat every summer,” said James Cario, an ALU shop steward at JFK8. “It’s been six years [since the facility opened]. Where’s the HVAC? Where’s the air conditioning?”
He added: “Amazon sets the tone here. We’re letting Amazon know we’re not afraid to escalate. If they don’t want to change how business is done, then business as usual cannot continue.”
Others also criticized the presence of dirty working stations filled with dust and other materials, along with rough, uncovered metal that has nicked and scratched warehouse workers.
In the three years that the ALU has been certified by the National Labor Relations Board, Amazon has not sat down at the bargaining table once, workers noted.
The company has instead ignored the union and filed appeal after appeal to try to break up the new union. Last year, members of the ALU voted to merge with the Teamsters.
“While we certainly respect the rights of all individuals to protest for causes they believe in, it’s important to point out that yesterday’s gathering was largely initiated and attended by outside organizers and former Amazon employees,” Amazon spokesperson Eileen Hards wrote the CITY in an email Thursday. “For more than two years now, the ALU and the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public by claiming they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push that false narrative.”
As of now, JFK8 is made up of more than 5,000 unionized workers alongside 200 non-unionized workers as well as drivers who are all subcontractors that do not work out of the Staten Island fulfillment center specifically according to ALU Recording Secretary Sultana Hossain.
The rally comes on the heels of a march on management that the ALU conducted last month over unsafe working conditions at JFK8. That followed the death of a worker, 34-year-old Leony Salcedo-Chevalier, in April. An investigation by the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration is still ongoing, according to the union.
But ALU members said they were not informed by Amazon about the workplace death. They also have not received any information about what workplace protocols were, or were not, followed, prior to Chevalier’s death, Hossain told THE CITY.
Despite a reported steep dropoffs in sales for retailers on the first day of Prime Day compared to last year, numbers are expected to increase by 9.1% year-over-year at the conclusion of what’s now a four-day sales push, according to Bloomberg.
Workers called on Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos to share more of that pie.
“He spent about 50 million on a wedding,” said Anthony Rosario, a Teamster lead organizer for the Amazon division, in reference to Bezos’ recent extravagant nuptials. “All the workers want is a livable wage.”
A drone could be seen flying in the air at the beginning of the 5 p.m. rally — which workers noted was also present during the holiday season strike last December. They said they did not know who it belonged to.