Elmer Goris, a 34-year-old man from Allentown, was a permanent Amazon employee working in one of their Pennsylvania warehouse for a year, before he quit in July. He left his jobs because of heat and mandatory overtime demands.
"Imagine if it's 98 degrees outside and you're in a warehouse with every single dock door closed," Goris said.
For the past two months, senior reporter Spencer Soper of The Morning Call, Allentown's newspaper, has been investigating the working conditions inside Amazon's Lehigh Valley warehouse. The 9-page article is a detailed account of the working conditions are at the warehouse. He interviewed 20 current and former warehouse workers who had documented proof of their employment. Only one person out of the 20 interviewed said the warehouse was a good place to work.
Before working for Amazon, Goris had over 10 years of experience working in warehouses. At other warehouses he worked at, loading dock doors would be opened to allow for cross ventilation to help cool the building. But managers at the Amazon warehouse kept the doors closed on hot days.
The mangers at the warehouse told the workers that Amazon kept the doors locked because it was worried about theft, Goris recalled. Instead, Amazon used computers to monitor the heat index in the warehouse and sent employees emails about the heat index (a measure of heat and humidity). Goris said the heat index exceeded 110 degrees on the third floor of the building one day.
"I remember going up there to check the location of an item," Goris said. "I lasted two minutes, because I could not breathe up there."
Goris saw a co-worker pass out a drinking fountain on a hot day. During the summer heat waves, Amazon had paramedics in ambulances parked outside of their warehouse; ready to help workers who became dehydrated or suffered from heat stress.
"I never felt like passing out in a warehouse and I never felt treated like a piece of crap in any other warehouse but this one," Goris said. "They can do that because there aren't any jobs in the area."
Workers were taken out of the warehouse on stretchers and wheelchairs. People who did not cool off quickly and return inside were transported to area hospitals. Workers at the warehouse filed complaints about the warehouse's working conditions with regulators at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
An emergency room doctor in June called federal regulators to report an "unsafe environment" after he treated several Amazon warehouse workers for heat-related problems. The doctor's report was echoed by warehouse workers who also complained to regulators, including a security guard who reported seeing pregnant employees suffering in the heat.
OSHA asked Amazon to investigate the warehouse situation on June 3 and the company's site safety manager, Allen Forney, responded with a letter on June 13. Forney wrote:
"As a result of these high temperatures, 15 out of 1,600 employees experienced heat-related symptoms. Six of these employees were treated at a local hospital ER for non-work related medical conditions triggered by the heat. None of those employees was admitted to the hospital; each employee was treated and released the same day. The other employees received water and ice treatment … by our facility's first-aid department. All employees returned to work the same day."
Forney wrote that Amazon had purchased 2,000 cooling bandannas for the employees and dock and trailer yard workers were given cooling vests. The warehouse has fans and louver doors to provide ventilation. Amazon installed 13 more fans in the warehouse since the OSHA inspection, Forney wrote, and planned on installing "temporary air conditioning systems" and hired temporary EMT to have on site.
Despite the working conditions, Amazon and Integrity Staffing Solutions, the temporary employee employment company they used, had no trouble finding people to work the $11 or $12 an hours jobs moving merchandise through the warehouse thanks to the lack of jobs in the region. Warehouse operations rely on temporary positions. ISS tells new temps that if they "work hard" their positions may be converted into permanent ones with Amazon. Few people ever become permanent employees, most assignments end after a set number of hours and after a few months, people can reapply for a temporary position.
The supply of temporary workers keeps Amazon's warehouse fully staffed without the expense of a permanent workforce that expects raises and good benefits. Using temporary employees in general also helps reduce the prospect that employees will organize a union that pushes for better treatment because the employees are in constant flux, labor experts say. And Amazon limits its liability for workers' compensation and unemployment insurance because most of the workers don't work for Amazon, they work for the temp agency...
The situation highlights how companies like Amazon can wield their significant leverage over workers in the bleak job market, labor experts say. Large companies such as Amazon can minimize costs for benefits and raises by relying on temporary workers rather than having a larger permanent workforce, those experts say.
"They can get away with it because most workers will take whatever they can get with jobs few and far between," said Catherine Ruckelshaus, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers. "The temp worker is less likely to complain about it and less likely to push for their labor rights because they feel like they don't have much pull or sway with the worksite employer."
I've only skimmed the surface of The Morning Call 7,280 word article, so I encourage you to read the full story, but to close here are two other worker's accounts of their jobs in the Amazon warehouse.
After two years of unemployment, 44-year-old Karen Salasky got hired by ISS to work in the Amazon warehouse.
"At first, I loved it," she said. "I started in November. We worked 11-hour days because of Christmas. It was hard, but I pushed myself and I got used to it."
She spent most of the day on her feet, but grew frustrated when she was sent a warning letter in March for being "unproductive during several minutes of her shift". When the weather got hot in May, Salasky productivity dropped.
"I just kept pushing myself," she said. "They asked me why my rates were dropping, and I said my rates are dropping because it's hot and I have asthma."
On a hot June day, Salasky said her fingers were tingling and her body felt numb. "She was taken by wheelchair to an air-conditioned room, where paramedics examined her while managers asked questions and took notes."
"I was really upset and I said, 'All you people care about is the rates, not the well-being of the people,'" she said. "I've never worked for an employer that had paramedics waiting outside for people to drop because of the extreme heat."
ISS asked her to sign papers saying she got irate and cursed. Salasky refused saying she never cursed. A few days later, her assignment was terminated.
Daily threats of termination were commonplace, said 22-year-old Mark Zweifel, who was fired in September after more than a year as a permanent Amazon warehouse employee.
"One day we came into work and they said, 'Your rate is now 500 units per hour. Get to it.' " Zweifel said. "No warning or nothing. I'm a young guy. I could keep up with it. But I saw the older people working there, they were getting written up a lot. I didn't think it was fair."
Former workers at the warehouse said they were "set up to fail" and the work "just got harder and harder".
"They would say, 'If you don't make rate, we will walk you out of the building and give your job to somebody who wants a job,' " Zweifel said. "I saw a 65-year-old guy get fired for not making stow rate. I saw him get talked to and then a manager walked him out of the building."
When Amazon switch his job assignment, Zweifel wasn't able to make rate. One thing led to another and he was fired. "I hated this job so much," he said.
Full disclosure: I regularly have purchased merchandise from Amazon.
Please read take the time to read the entire article.