Amazon’s Prime Sweatshop Is Nothing to Celebrate

Amazon provides fans at workstations, but “when it’s hot, it’s really just blowing hot air at you,” Antonie Sparrow, another union member at JFK8, told me. Heat exhaustion and heatstroke are common. “I see a lot of influx of people in and out of Amcare.” 

Adrian Easterling passed out recently in JFK8’s stow department. “I ended up getting heatstroke even though I was properly hydrating,” he told me. “I told another worker, ‘I don’t feel good,’ and the next thing I remember I was in Amcare.” An ambulance transported him to the hospital, where he got fluids and cooling treatment. 

Many of the Staten Island workers have long commutes—as much as two or three hours each way. “During MET, literally you go home, shut your eyes, then go and do it all again,” Sparrow said.

The problem is systemic throughout Amazon’s 1,000-plus warehouses, air cargo centers, and delivery stations. 

“During Prime, they load the planes more” because of the higher package volumes, said Allen (not his real name), an Amazon ramp worker in Fort Worth, Texas. “They always say we don’t want you to rush, but the managers will be out there telling everyone to hurry up and squeeze all of the packages into the [plane’s] belly,” he told me, adding that managers get a bonus when all the planes go out on time.

“Amazon likes to say it’s all about safety, but we all know it comes second to productivity,” Rebecca (not her real name either), a Sacramento warehouse worker, told me. 

Amazon delivery drivers are also subjected to brutal working conditions. The drivers technically are employed by a host of contractors—“delivery service partners” (DSPs)—but Amazon dictates and monitors the drivers’ work rates and package loads. Drivers are hard-pressed to get any break during their 10-hour delivery shifts, and many resort to peeing in bottles in their vans. 

Drivers on chat channels like Reddit note that it gets worse during Prime week, when package loads go up and there’s a spike in muscle injuries, extreme fatigue, and traffic accidents. Management at most DSPs are unsupportive. A Colorado delivery driver told me about a coworker who fainted while delivering in 95-degree heat. “The DSP responded by cutting his hours. When he expressed frustration at this treatment in the company group chat, management immediately deleted all the messages and removed him from the chat,” the driver told me.

In a few places, Amazon workers are organizing, fighting back, and winning some improvements. At the KSBD air cargo hub in San Bernardino, California, workers staged direct actions and won heat breaks, cold water, and cooling stations. At the KCVG air cargo center in Kentucky, workers refused to work on the ramp until the company provided vans with functioning air conditioning. (Shamefully, Amazon then fired the union activist who led the action.) In Garner, North Carolina, where RDU1 warehouse workers have been agitating for heat safety after a series of worker hospitalizations earlier this year, Amazon has begun installing more fans and overhauling the building’s ventilation system. “This is a big win—this was a result of our advocacy,” said Ras Amon, an RDU1 worker and member of the independent union Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment.

But overall, the pace of organizing at Amazon doesn’t come close to matching the urgency on the shop floor. Last December the Teamsters union led minority strikes at eight Amazon warehouses, but has since maintained a low national organizing profile. Over the past months, quite a few workers around the country have expressed bewilderment to me about why there hasn’t been more aggressive campaigning from the Teamsters.

There certainly is a big union difference to highlight. Teamsters at UPS also are battling for heat safety, but thanks to their union contract, management must provide water and ice to drivers and two fans in every van. UPS Teamsters have the right to take extra breaks if they are experiencing heat stress.

An informal national network of Amazon workers, which I have been supporting through my work at the Center for Work and Democracy, is encouraging workers to go to Amazonworkers.org to contribute their stories of unsafe heat. ALU Local 1 members have developed a Safety Bill of Rights and are circulating it nationally for Amazon workers and supporters to sign, as they continue to battle for union recognition at JFK8—three years after winning their federal representation election.

As for dealing with this week’s Prime sweatshop, JFK8’s Easterling urges fellow Amazon workers enduring extreme heat and overwork to organize their coworkers and “to not be scared. To fight back. This may be normal, but it’s not OK.”