‘We won’t let them abuse workers’
Community activists rally for workers’ rights outside of Amazon warehouse in Woodside
BY ANGÉLICA ACEVEDO
Freezing temperatures
and snow flurries didn’t stop
community activists, former
Staten Island Amazon warehouse
workers, Senator Jessica
Ramos and Queens Borough
President candidate Costa Constantinides
from protesting the
future openings of Amazon distribution
centers in Woodside
and Maspeth, right outside of
their newly opened warehouse
in Woodside on Dec. 16.
That morning, Athena Coalition,
a group of New York, New
Jersey and other national organizations
that advocate for working
people in the U.S. — such as
Make the Road New York, one
of the organizers at the rally —
released a report entitled “Packaging
Pain,” which detailed the
“hazardous conditions” that
Amazon warehouse workers
face during the holidays.
“We are here to express our
outrage, we are here to express
our concerns of the dangers facing
workers inside of this facility
and every single Amazon
warehouse around the country,”
Angeles Solis, lead organizer
of the workplace justice
team at Make the Road New
York, said.
Some of the findings of that
report include an injury rate
that is three times higher than
the national average rate —
which is based on Amazon’s
OSHA 300A log data from a total
of 24 facilities from 15 states
in comparison to logs of other
professions from the U.S. Bureau
of Labor Statistics’ Injury,
Illness, and Fatalities Data for
2018. The full report is on their
new website www.amazonpackagingpain.
org.
At the rally, Make the
Road Field Coordinator Juan
Goris mentioned that they also
found that the time period between
Dec. 10 and 16 is “the most
dangerous week of the year for
people who work in Amazon’s
distribution network.”
“For too long, Amazon has
been able to get away with treating
workers like robots. Workers
leave these warehouses
in pain everyday,” Goris said.
“They feel they don’t have a
choice because a robot determines
whether they can put
food on the table for their family.
We must bring an end to these
inhumane working conditions
which thousands of New Yorkers
have to endure everyday.”
Ramos echoed Make the
Road’s statements during her
speech at the rally, emphasizing
that “in Queens, this is not
the standard for good jobs and
we will not stand for it.”
“According to data collected
by the Athena Coalition, Amazon
workers are more likely to
be injured at work than police
officers, lumber jacks or coal
miners, and it’s truly a shame
that one of the world’s wealthiest
corporations subjects its hardest
working laborers to such
cruel workplace conditions. We
need to provide relief from the
brutal demands of their jobs immediately,”
Ramos said.
Ramos also mentioned a
press conference she held earlier
this year when they learned
about the warehouse in Woodside
where they were standing,
located at 1 Bulova Avenue,
which opened recently.
“Because it was an as-ofright
project, there was no requirement
for community input
so unfortunately our voices
have long gone unheard by Amazon
and by its CEO Jeff Bezos,”
she said.
Councilman Constantinides,
who was also against
Amazon’s HQ2 earlier this year,
added that in addition to unsafe
working environments in the
warehouses, Amazon’s nextday
or two-day shipping has
TIMESLEDGER | Q 2 NS.COM | DEC. 20-26, 2019
caused its drivers to get into car
accidents, but often avoid liability
for those accidents.
“We see the blue vans all
over this community right now,
zipping around our neighborhoods
in a hurry to get where
they need to go because a robot
determines how quickly they
need to make their delivery …
we’ve witnessed several car
accidents with these vehicles,”
Constantinides said.
“If the richest man in the
world and Amazon, one of the
richest companies in the world,
want to be here in western
Queens they have to work with
New York City union rules,” he
added. “This is a union town.
This is a town that stands up for
labor, for workers, for those who
need a voice.”
Former Staten Island warehouse
workers Xuepeng Pang
and Ilya Geller spoke at the rally
about the treatment they endured
at their Amazon location
— which had its workers go on
strike in November in demand
of better working conditions.
According to Pang and
Geller, the warehouse had tight
surveillance and tracked their
breaks — two 10-minute breaks
and one 30-minute lunch break
during a 10-12 hour-long shift
— so that no time was wasted.
They both emphasized that
almost half of their break was
spent walking to and from their
lunch area in the “14 football
fields long” warehouse.
At the rally, Solis read a
statement from another former
Staten Island Amazon worker
Hiba Aly, who couldn’t make it
to Woodside.
“While I worked at Amazon,
I was constantly dehydrated and
on the verge of fainting multiple
times. I feared taking a break
because I would be punished for
‘Time Off Task’ and potentially
fired,” the statement read. “I
was let go because Amazon
demands unrealistically high
standards of work and when
I was sick at work, I could not
meet them.”
Another member of Make
the Road, Amado Sanchez, read
a statement in Spanish at the
rally which tied in Amazon’s
work with Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE).
In July, protesters in New York
presented Bezos with a petition
with more than 270,000 signatures
demanding the company
stop giving ICE and other government
and police agencies
data they collect from their customers.
“I have lived in Queens for
several decades … I have fought
for workers’ rights for many
years and we achieved protections
against wage theft, for sick
days and more. But Amazon is
putting all our victories at risk,”
Sanchez said in Spanish. “I’m
going to keep fighting Amazon
so they listen to us. We will not
let them abuse their workers.
We will not let them collaborate
with ICE. We are immigrants
united against this monopoly. ”
Amazon’s response
QNS reached out to Amazon
for comment on the rally and
the report, and a spokesperson
said that “no current Amazon
associate participated in the
event and it was obvious to the
hundreds of individuals who
work in our building that an
outside organization used our
site to raise its own visibility
and spread misinformation.”
The spokesperson said that
Amazon provides a “safe and
quality work environment” in
which their associates are the
“heart and soul of the customer
experience.”
In regards to the report,
the spokesperson said that it’s
“inaccurate” to say that their
warehouses, which they refer
to as fulfillment centers, are
unsafe given the size of their
workforce.
The spokesperson added
that there’s a “dramatic level of
under-recording of safety incidents
across the industry,” and
in an effort to combat that, Amazon
took an “aggressive stance”
in 2016 to record injuries “no
matter how big or small.”
When it comes to the report,
the Amazon spokesperson said
that it was “developed and promoted
by a collection of self-interested
critics.”
“The fact is nothing is more
important to us than safety
— last year we provided more
than one million hours of safety
training to employees and invested
more than $55 million on
safety improvement projects,
including ergonomic improvements,”
the spokesperson said.
“We continually improve safety
at our sites by reducing physical
risk through the design of
processes, equipment and work
areas, and we also have a Safety
Leadership Index across our
US operations where every associate
answers a series of questions
each month to directly tell
us how they feel we can further
enhance our safety culture.”
They added that they encourage
anyone to see their
warehouses for themselves by
taking a tour at one of their
fulfillment centers. People can
schedule tours on their website
at www.amazonfctours.com or
email them at tours@amazon.
com.
From left, Councilman Costa Constantinides and Senator Jessica Ramos speak out against Amazon
warehouses in Queens on Dec. 16. Photo: Angélica Acevedo/QNS
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