Amazon Orders Warehouse Employees Sheltering-At-Home To Return To Work

There is a new report that as many as 30 Amazon employees have contracted COVID-19 at a warehouse in New Jersey. Despite the transmission risk of the virus rising at some Amazon facilities, the company has requested all US warehouse workers who have sheltered at home to return to regular shifts beginning on May 1, reported Bloomberg.

Amazon has worked over the last month to mitigate the spread of the virus at its warehouse facilities across the country. We noted in late March, employees at a New York warehouse went on strike, fed up with the company’s lack of sanitation protocols to keep employees safe.

Amazon recently added thermal imaging cameras at entrances of its warehouses and Whole Foods to screen for feverish employees, a move that would hopefully reduce the spread of the virus. 

The company said employees who were not comfortable in coming back to warehouses next week could take unpaid time off without penalty through the end of the month. This means Amazon is ending the ‘unlimited unpaid time off’ policy that was established during the start of the pandemic as signs of curve flattening are seen. 

In a bid to bring back some of its workers from the sidelines, the company has increased pay for warehouse employees by $2 per hour, calling it ‘hazard pay.’

A company blog post on Friday provided more details into the pay increase:

“We’ve extended the increased hourly pay outlined below through May 16. We are also extending double overtime pay in the US and Canada. These extensions increase our total investment in pay during COVID-19 to nearly $700 million for our hourly employees and partners. In addition, we are providing flexibility with leave of absence options, including expanding the policy to cover COVID-19 circumstances, such as high-risk individuals or school closures. We continue to see heavy demand during this difficult time and the team is doing incredible work for our customers and the community.”

The move to get employees back into warehouses, despite the virus still spreading at some facilities, is due to the total transformation of the American economy that has shifted online. Amazon announced the hiring of an additional 100,000 warehouse and delivery workers last month to meet the new demand.