`Working conditions are hell,' say Amazon staff

Crowded work spaces that make social distancing all but impossible. Minimal personal protective equipment. Little information about infections. And a high-pressure work culture that discourages speaking out.

For one current and one former employee of Amazon Canada's frenetically busy warehouses, and a worker advocate, word that the facilities have seen hundreds of COVID-19 cases is no shock.

The company's “fulfilment centres” may be high-tech powerhouses in terms of processing consumer orders in lightning-quick fashion. But amidst widening lockdowns to curb spread of the coronavirus, they are also largely free of government restrictions — and ill-equipped to prevent transmission among employees, say those who have worked at the centres.

More than 400 staff have tested positive just at the four facilities in Ontario's Peel region that surround Pearson International Airport, a source familiar with the data has told the National Post.

“I’m not at all surprised, looking at the working conditions,” said Savi Sidhu, who worked at one of two plants in Brampton, Ont., in 2018. “The working conditions are hell.”

Sidhu said even when he was briefly employed as a forklift driver two years ago, the floor was always busy. There could be eight or nine people in an aisle, “really close.” The lunch rooms were “jam-packed,” and lineups formed at the washrooms, he said.

Since then, Amazon has hired thousands more workers to staff those same facilities and others in Canada.

Now, says a current employee at another Peel Region fulfilment centre, supervisors actually discourage people from keeping two metres apart while waiting to use the lavatory, feeling the queues take up too much space.

There seems to be little cleaning at the plant to prevent transmission of virus from surfaces, said the worker, who has been on unpaid leave since the spring, but stays in touch with his colleagues. He asked not to be named to avoid retribution from his employer.

“There is no social distancing, there is no sanitation,” said the worker. “Many of them, 99 per cent of them, are scared of working there, but they have no choice.”

Added to the lack of precautions is a relentless drive for productivity that sees staff chastised for minor slip-ups or being late by a few minutes, said the employee.

“People outside don’t understand because they are getting their parcels every day,” he said. “They don’t understand the slavery that goes into delivering your parcels.”

Amazon does issue surgical-type masks for employees, but doesn’t allow staff to use their own N-95 or other more protective face coverings, arguing it could unduly frighten co-workers, the employee said.

He said he received a text message from the company last week about two new COVID-19 cases in his centre, with few details.

Amazon’s media relations office did not respond by deadline to questions about its pandemic response. But in September. BC.-based executive Jesse Dougherty told The Canadian Press that the company had spent more than $800 million on employee safety since the start of the year. The investments covered areas such as temperature checks, enhanced physical distancing and personal protective wear, he said.

The tightening lockdowns in Ontario and other provinces have tended to target private gatherings and places where the public congregates — stores, restaurants, bars, houses of worship and gyms.

But factories, food-processing plants and the distribution centres that service a soaring volume of online shopping are generally considered essential and largely exempt from those controls. They’re also much less visible.

Patrick Brown, the mayor of Peel Region’s city of Brampton, has said efforts to control the pandemic should focus more on such workplaces, whose employees in his area often go home to — and potentially infect — multi-generational dwellings. Brown recommends that employees get better access to sick days, that Ontario’s Labour Ministry inspect the plants more often, and an isolation centre be set up in Brampton so employees who test positive can quarantine away from family members.

“The situation is kind of critical and these workers, they need support,” said Gagandeep Kaur of the Warehouse Workers Centre.

The Centre was set up by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers to help employees of Amazon — none of whom are unionized in this country — and similar facilities.

Kaur said few of the employees are willing to speak out and risk punishment at work. “They don’t want to lose the only job they have. Amazon is the one that has been hiring during the pandemic.”

One of the problems fuelling COVID-19 transmission is a lack of legislated, paid sick days for the numerous temporary workers at the facilities. It means they either stay home without pay or go to work sick, hoping they don’t have the coronavirus and avoid infecting others, said Kaur.

Adding to the pressure is Amazon’s system for monitoring workers’ productivity, designed to minimize “time off task.” Sidhu recalls that on his second day on the job he was 10 minutes late scanning his first item, because the scanner had malfunctioned. But he still was chastised by a supervisor.

Even time spent in the washroom is monitored, said the other worker, who recalls a supervisor suggesting associates should be able to work at least four hours without a bathroom break.

“They are not treating their employees as human beings,” he said.