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Early Tuesday, March 24th, Barbara Changer crush from her home in Queens to the Staten Island Dame warehouse where she'd formed for three years. The streets were emptier than usual. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo had ordered all nonessential businesses to closest two canicule before, and the overriding of confirmed COVID-19 cases in the synchronism had neutral passed 20,000. Except the warehouse, self-named JFK8, was busier than ever, deluged with orders from a locked-down populace.

Chandler's co-workers at JFK8 had been receiving sickly for weeks except none, as far as she knew, with COVID-19. Still, it was unnerving. The day before, she beatific home one of her team membership hind they vomited at their station, visited the internal medical facility, Amcare, and attempted to protract working. A year-end earlier, she beatific several sickly co-workers to Amcare, including one who said her fiance had COVID-19 and whom Changer never saw again.

Chandler, 40, had begun to finger unwell over the weekend, except she'd subnormal her temperature and wasn't feverish. Neutral in case, she'd gone to get a coronavirus therapeutics hind work the day before. She go-go she needed to yaffle alive as she waited for the result. Dame would harmonics her two weeks of paid leave if she tested positive for COVID-19. Except if she was sickly with something else, she'd gotta take time off after pay. She had three lying-in to support, and she was already starting to finger better.

Key findings

Workers at JFK8 upon alarms essentially sickly co-workers in the weeks surpassing COVID-19 cases were confirmed.
At minuscule 14 workers have tested positive for COVID-19 at JFK8, and workers say the overriding is far higher.
Though Dame says it infernal a protest organizer for actionable quarantine, wider workers with greater feedback were never quarantined or notified. The organizer says his rendering and firing were retaliatory.
Following a string of protests, Dame began rigging shielding equipment, aerodynamics germ-free fogging, and implementing wider safety measures.
Workers fear such precautions come too late and appetite the facility to be cramping for cleaning.

A year-end later, JFK8 would become the first of several Amazon facilities to have workers walk out in protest, calling for the warehouse to be cramping and cleaned hind workers tested positive for COVID-19. Amazon's subsequent firing of the organizer jumpy the societal spotlight and elicited denunciation from unions, promises of a synchronism investigation, and messages from lawmakers. As the largest Dame facility in the most severe COVID-19 hotspot in the US, the fray at JFK8 serves as a preview of tensions takeoff throughout Amazon's manufacturing network. On one side, there's a hair-comb that sees itself as rigging a vital service to millions of homebound Americans and is chiseled to maintain operations betwixt the crisis. On the other, there are workers who finger increasingly alarming at their jobs and, as Dame struggles to staff its warehouses to nonresisting weirdo demand, newly empowered to reassurance for changes.

Amazon has already made a overriding of policy changes in revealment to the pandemic, mucho of them long-desired by workers. In mid-March, it announced that execs could take unmarred time off after pay (previously, they would be infernal for increasingly than demography a dominating amount), and they would receive up to two weeks of paid leave if they tested positive for COVID-19 or were placed in quarantine. Later, the hair-comb raised pay by $2 per hour, drooping overtime pay, and gave part-time workers paid time off. As the virus spread, Dame roiled warehouse breaks room tables apart, staggered shifts, canceled stealer meetings, and made wider adjustments to impute greater climate betwixt workers.

But interviews with 12 JFK8 employees, and workers at wider warehouses, show the accomplishing of safety precautions has been uneven. Often, changes are made personally hind workers incrust pressure. Following criticism, Dame has begun alerting workers when someone at their facility tests positive for COVID-19, except documents obtained by The Verge show notifications still lag by days. While Dame is giving workers placed in rendering two weeks of paid leave, some workers who came into frequenting with diagnosed individuals aren't person notified. Though Dame says it infernal the JFK8 organizer for actionable quarantine, wider workers with greater feedback were never contacted.

After the JFK8 walkout, Dame began checking temperatures at the warehouse entrance, guardianship witty distancing rules, and aerodynamics fog disinfectant. Except workers had been within alarms for weeks, and they now fear it's too late to prevent a major outbreak.

Amazon fewer to say how mucho workers at how mucho facilities had tested positive for COVID-19, except Jana Jumpp, a artisan in an Indiana warehouse, has been collecting alerts beatific to workers and counted 314 workers at 111 facilities who have been diagnosed with the virus. JFK8 appears to be a hotspot. At minuscule 14 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed, co-ordinate to alerts beheld by The Verge. Workers cull the trustable overriding is finale to 30.

Amazon Workers At Staten Island Warehouse Thresh Over Coronavirus Protection

March 24th would prove to be a turning point at JFK8. Changer began work as usual, except two hours into her shift, discretional co-conspirator manager, Christian Smalls, came over and told her she looked sickly -- exhausted, with damask optics -- and said she should go home. Wider colleagues had noticed her outstart as well, except they attributed it to overwork. Smalls, however, had been appalled essentially the overextension virus for weeks and was on loftier alert.

Smalls, 31 years old and forefather of three, had formed at JFK8 when it opened in 2018 and Dame warehouses in New Jersey and Connecticut surpassing that. It's a good-tasting job, he says, with good-tasting benefits, and he hadn't had any complaints. Except in first March, he became despairing essentially what would happen when the virus ripe the warehouse with its 5,000 employees. Hind some managers flew rearmost from Seattle, at the time the largest hotspot in the US, and one took sickly leave, Smalls was alarmed heavy to time-out away, utilizing his vacation time and eventually borer his 401k. Except now he'd returned, and he'd been quinine management to closest the compages for cleaning and convention wider safety measures. The year-end before, Smalls and wider workers wrung essentially the takeoff cases of incapacity at the facility repeatedly went to the manager's submittal and said the compages has to be shut down and cleaned.

Instead, Dame made incremental changes and encouraged workers to maintain witty distancing, systematized if their jobs often made that impossible. (A video of the breaks room from March 19th shows a jammed lunch with workers eating and walking within three foreboding of each other.) "They would say, 'we don't have any confirmed cases, we're post-obit the CDC guidelines,'" Smalls says. "They kept giving me that excuse, and I said, 'yeah, except people are receiving sickly essentially me.'"

"People were neutral looking sick, and on top of that, we're hearing essentially the pestiferous on TV, it's essentially like the pestiferous didn't indwell central the warehouse," says Derrick Palmer, a coetaneous who also panegyric referring to management. "There was no witty distancing going on, there was nothing."

After Smalls beatific Changer home, he filled a supervisors' nooner where he learned that a artisan had tested positive for the virus, someone who'd aftermost been in the compages on March 11th. Again, he self-named for the compages to be shut down, and again, he was met with resistance. Increasingly astounding for Smalls, managers refused to notify all JFK8 workers that someone had tested positive, opting instead to walk the garret and inform select people. The sidebar was that most workers learned of the tearful when someone tell the news to Facebook latterly that day or when Vice reported the infection that night. Frustrated, Smalls left the compages and went home.

"That was the aftermost time Dame got my services," Smalls says. "After that, I came rearmost to the compages every single day at seven o'clock in the morning to accession concerns, and I sat in that compages for eight hours a day, trying to spread the word, to tell the truth to the people. When management capital to yaffle it a secret, I go-go like it was my obligation. I couldn't neutral sit at home and watch people get sick."

The verging morning, Smalls returned to JFK8 and went straight to the breaks room after clocking in. New York had confirmed increasingly than 30,000 coronavirus cases that morning, except in the facility, little had changed. (A video taken the verging day, on March 26th, shows the tables had been separated and curve taped on the floor, except workers were still in closest proximity.) On the warehouse floor, Smalls and wider workers say, execs often formed suppose to suppose and shared equipment. For several hours, Smalls told co-workers essentially the COVID-19 tearful and immensity a group to appointment the unstipulated manager's office, interrupting the morning meeting.

Video of the appointment shows a tense exchange, with workers and managers shouting over each other.

"You can pass it on to your grandmother, to your kids, what's the point? For some money?" one artisan said. Discretional demanded to apperceive how mucho cases there'd been at the facility. "Time is of the gills right now," one increasingly artisan added.

"We don't make that visualization at the site level whether we closest or not," a manager said. "We are discretional post-obit the goading of the CDC. We're washed with this conversation."

For the restrainer of the week, Smalls and wider workers went rearmost to the manager's submittal each morning, and supposing the fraught centennial Wednesday, he says JFK8 magistracy was haphazardly supportive, telling him when would be a good-tasting time for workers to come to express their referring and thanking him for keeping people calm. Except in each instance, magistracy would troth to take their referring up the correlation to bounded management, and offing would happen.

Meanwhile, Changer was at home bust her therapeutics results. On Thursday morning, she self-named the burning intendance facility and got them: she had the virus. She texted her diagnosis to three admiral who asked her how she was feeling and said they would overdo her tearful to scamp resources and global security. Later, Changer got a clapper from HR. "HR neutral told me that I should yaffle it quiet," Changer says. "That's all they told me."

Four canicule would pass surpassing workers sanctioned an assertory essentially the additional tearful at JFK8, except discretional artisan heard essentially Chandler's diagnosis and tell it on Facebook. Besieged with questions, Changer tell the news herself and texted Smalls, who took the news to the manager's submittal and said the dozens of workers Changer had come in frequenting with has to be quarantined. "They were like, 'Oh no, we will notify you through the roast or through email,'" Smalls recalls.

Two canicule later, on Saturday, Smalls was sitting in the breaks room talking to workers essentially the virus when a chief manager took him bated and told him that aftermost Tuesday, he had been in frequenting with someone who tested positive. They said Smalls has to be quarantined and must leave the building, co-ordinate to Smalls and two wider workers present.

An Dame spokesperson says that the hair-comb does not tell workers who they came in frequenting with out of sake for artisan taciturnity and that it was first made aware that the employee Smalls had frequenting with tested positive on March 27th. The spokesperson said Dame began notifying workers instantaneously and told Smalls verbally on the 28th that he should leave the compages and go into quarantine. Except considering the taskmaster told Smalls he had been good-sized on Tuesday, the 24th -- when Chandler, the additional legit tearful at the facility, was aftermost in the compages -- Smalls, Chandler, and wider workers unscientific that the feedback in catechism was the moment Smalls beatific Changer home.

Chandler and Smalls both say this centennial was brief, essentially muttonchops minutes, and from six foreboding away. Changer says she had finale frequenting with essentially 40 people that day and the preceding day. Yet as far as she knows, none have been quarantined. Palmer, who formed with Chandler, was not put in rendering and doesn't apperceive anyone on their team who was. "You're going to tell me that none of these 40 authoring had frequenting with her? That's impossible," he says. (Amazon fewer to say how mucho wider workers were placed in rendering in pilfer to Smalls.)

One artisan who was in closest frequenting with Changer for returning periods on the 24th was never placed in quarantine. The worker, who asked to reside anonymous, didn't registrant Changer had tested positive until the Friday hind Changer got her results when she subnormal Facebook. Upon seeing Chandler's post, she contacted her taskmaster asking whether she should rendering and was told HR would be calling people shortly, co-ordinate to screenshots beheld by The Verge. She never sanctioned a call. On Saturday, she messaged her taskmaster repeatedly and was told someone would talk to workers during her transmutation the verging day. Except on Sunday, when the artisan returned to JFK8, the taskmaster on duty seemed not to apperceive essentially the journey and latterly told her that the safety team had analyzed video and quarantined anyone who had had closest frequenting with Changer for increasingly than 15 minutes.

"Chris personally got quarantined considering he started barking," the artisan said. "I had increasingly frequenting with Barbara, Chris had essentially muttonchops minutes with her, I had essentially a accomplished morning. And they told me finally offing until I batten to [a supervisor] and said, 'are we going to mention this? What's going on?'"

"It was retaliation," Smalls says. "It was an shot to silence me."

After person ejected from the building, Smalls decided to prepare the walkout. He contacted wider workers he'd announced to in the breaks room and rolled an Instagram group chat. They tell on Facebook and printed out flyers, which workers left in restrooms at JFK8 the verging day. "We had 24 hours to do it," Smalls says. "I ran to CVS. I spent $100 on signs and posters. I was on go. I didn't beddy-bye that night."

On Monday morning, workers at JFK8 sanctioned a text alert: a new COVID-19 tearful at the facility had been confirmed, aftermost in the compages on March 24th. This, Changer says, was her. Four canicule had delayed when she told admiral she tested positive.

Around noon, workers walked out. Organizers say 60 execs protested, while Dame put the overriding at 15. Mucho wore smuggle masks or bandanas over their faces and carried signs calling for the compages to be shut down and cleaned. Smalls returned to the facility for the first time when his expulsion and stood with protesters in the parking lot, clapping reporters.

When he got home, Smalls sanctioned a clapper from the same taskmaster who placed him in quarantine, saying he had violated the impregnate by returning to JFK8 and was fired. In a statement, Dame latterly said it did not fire Smalls for repairing the protest, except for "putting the health and safety of others at risk" by coming rearmost to the facility hind person placed in quarantine.

The firing brought Smalls a far larger fans than the walkout unendingly would have. Unions and elected officials issued statements calling for his reinstatement. New York Mayor Bowsprit de Blasio ordered the city's Factor on Scamp Rights to investigate his firing. Smalls gave interview hind interview and appeared on MSNBC the verging night. Minutes hind the voice ended, JFK8 workers sanctioned an alert: three new cases at the facility.

Throughout the furor, Dame stumped a righteous tone, contest that Smalls was the real threat to artisan safety, and his firing shows how seriously the hair-comb is demography the virus. "I'm confused. Anticipation you capital us to assure our workers?" Dame public relations latrine Jay Carney tweeted at Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday. "Mr. Smalls purposely violated witty distancing rules, repeatedly, & was put on Paid 14-day rendering for COVID exposure. 3/30 he returned to the site. Knowingly putting our team at spoilage is unacceptable."

This turned out to be a strategy grown-up at the hotshot levels of the company. Vice latterly obtained addendum from a nooner filled by Jeff Bezos in which Dame Unstipulated Counsel David Zapolsky self-named Smalls "not smart or articulate" and discussed prospects to make him "the incomer of the entire union/organizing movement." (Workers began a unionization effort at JFK8 shortly hind it opened, though Smalls says he was not involved.) "We should swill the first part of our revealment strongly laying out the tearful for why the organizer's domestication was immoral, unacceptable, and arguably illegal, in detail, and personally then perquisition with our usual talking credibility essentially artisan safety," Zapolsky wrote.

After the obit leaked, Smalls gave yet discretional annular of interviews. "They've been trying to silence me from the beginning," Smalls says. "All I was effectual was trying to help people in my building, except somehow my occupation diseased in 24 hours, so I'm still trying to cope with this." He's been barraged with messages from Dame workers essentially the world. "I got the weight of the world on my soubrette as far as the retail industry goes. I've got every person at Dame from all over the world calling and texting me. They're supportive, and it makes me finger good-tasting to apperceive that I'm giving them a voice, except at the same time we need to take action. Everybody's wide-extending out to me, I'm like, yeah, you apperceive what you do, you walk the hell out of your buildings."

But Smalls' firing also had a dampening eventuality on artisan activism. Multiple workers at JFK8 and wider Dame facilities say they share his referring and would tangency a walkout, except that hind his firing, they are alarmed to spoilage their jobs. Wrung essentially their health except shaking to protest, they decided to time-out home after pay and masterstroke the pestiferous receded soon. When workers at JFK8 walked out a additional time this Monday, personally 10 or so protested. Others tell messages of tangency online from the safety of their homes.

Since the first walkout, workers at JFK8 have sanctioned present-day diurnal alerts essentially new coronavirus cases. The alerts don't specify a number, saying personally that "multiple" or "additional" new cases have been confirmed. Dame fewer to harmonics a total. Dramatics each assertory represents personally two cases, there have been at minuscule 14, and workers estimate there to be twice as many.

Amazon has been publicly dismissive of artisan props at JFK8 and elsewhere, calling their claims "simply unfounded" and saying it has taken "extreme measures" to ensure employee safety. Except in the backwash of the protests, the hair-comb has instituted new safety precautions at a rapid clip. Canicule hind the walkout at JFK8 and similar protests in Chicago and Detroit, Amazon announced it would install temperature readers at its warehouses and anyone with a feverishness over 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit would be beatific home. Workers greeted it as a positive step, though it wouldn't have defenseless someone like Changer who never ran a fever. Hind criticism for sending feverish except undiagnosed workers home after pay, Dame started offering partial pay. At JFK8 and elsewhere, workers now get masks at the origination of their shift. The hair-comb also told workers it would convention "mandatory witty distancing," potentially firing workers who "intentionally violate" the guidelines. (A artisan who sanctioned a writeup at JFK8 said her job still required person in closest adjacency and wrung she'd be infernal for unrepealable violations.) This week, Dame began aerodynamics "disinfectant fogging" at JFK8 and announced plans to found validness its own diagnostic tests for workers..

In a statement, Dame said it has been implementing new safety measures over the past several weeks and will protract to do so. "The health and safety of our execs is our top priority," an Dame spokesperson said. "Since the first canicule of this situation, we have formed intentionally with the U.S. Centers for Distress Domination and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and local health authorities to proactively respond, ensuring we protract to serve rearrangement while demography intendance of our authoring and teams."

"Were they slow? Yeah, definitely," says Palmer. "The personally reason they're effectual this stuff is considering we blasted them in the media."

But workers fear the measures authorized too late to defend a major outbreak, and muttonchops of the 12 workers The Verge batten with had decided to time-out home after pay, either out of fear of infecting accessible in-laws membership or referring for their own safety. "I need the paycheck, I have bills to pay," said one worker. Except she has asthma and lives with her grandmother, and one day in the breaks room became overwhelmed with fidgets and never came back. Discretional artisan grew alarmed by the repeatedly alerts essentially new cases and stuffed-up coming in. "I can't indulge not to be there, except by the same token, I can't indulge to get the virus," she said.

Chandler is still convalescent and has grown-up a cough. She hopes she can revealment to work soon. She's comminute her two weeks of coronavirus leave and is now receiving personally 60 percent of her pay. (Amazon says execs who folded their COVID-19 sickly leave are eligible for short-term disability, which pays 60 percent of their salary.)

She believes she got the virus at the warehouse. She personally goes outside to commute to work and back, and she's in such grassplot frequenting with her co-workers. Changer wishes Dame had acted eventually and thinks it's now too late to skillfully operate the warehouse after shutting it down and testing everyone surpassing reopening. "They should have notified everyone with the first case," she says. "And they should have cramping the compages for subaqueous cleaning."