HOUSTON – An Amazon employee is convinced management isn’t being transparent about the number of coronavirus cases among employees. The employee works at an 880,000-square-foot fulfillment center in the Greenspoint area.
Amazon declined to provide an exact number of employees at the facility. However, employee Colin Bott said the number is between 2,000 and 3,000.
“It would give us peace of mind if they shut it down right now and do a deep clean because everyone is nervous,” Bott said.
Bott said Amazon stopped specifying the number of new cases, only announcing the existence of new cases. At last count, he said there were more than 20 confirmed COVID-19 cases among employees at the facility.
He also said following social distancing guidelines are hard to follow in practice. But, he does not believe a severe threat exists for Amazon customers.
Amazon’s position is that there is no evidence of COVID-19 being spread through packages, according to CDC and WHO Guidance.
Amazon spokesperson Timothy Carter released a written statement regarding its efforts to protect employees and the public from coronavirus:
Our employees are heroes fighting for their communities and helping people get critical items they need in this crisis—we have nearly 500,000 people in the U.S. alone supporting customers and we are taking measures to support each one. We’ve implemented a broad suite of new benefits changes for employees in our operations and logistics network including an additional $2 per hour, 2x base pay for overtime, and paid time off benefits for regular part-time and seasonal employees.
We are encouraging those who are unwell to stay home and taking extreme measures to keep people safe in our buildings. And, since the early days of this situation, we have worked closely with health authorities to proactively respond, ensuring we continue to serve customers while taking care of our associates and teams. We have also implemented proactive measures at our facilities to protect employees including increased cleaning at all facilities, maintaining social distance in the fulfillment center, and adding distance between drivers and customers when making deliveries.
Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are evaluating and making changes in real-time and encourage anyone to compare our overall pay, benefits, and speed in which we’re managing this crisis to other retailers and major employers across the country.