Amazon warehouse workers sound alarm ahead of Prime Day
CTV
Amazon's annual Prime Day event will be held on July 16-17, but behind the deals lie health and security concerns for warehouse and delivery workers.
Amazon's annual Prime Day event will be held on July 16-17, but behind the deals lie health and security concerns for warehouse and delivery workers.
Mostafa Henaway knows all too well the health risks faced by Amazon workers. Three years ago, Henaway penned an article in The Breach where he detailed how he infiltrated Amazon's Laval warehouse and what he learned from the experience.
Henaway is now a community organizer with the Immigrant Workers Centre in Montreal, an organization that defends the rights of immigrants in their workplaces. He is also a PhD candidate at Concordia University focusing on working conditions in e-commerce warehouses.
According to his experience and testimonies from workers during Amazon Prime Day, warehouse and delivery staff work 50 hours a week, have less access to personal time off, and must take on mandatory overtime.
"Workers are walking 20 kilometres a shift, also [during] a moment of extreme heat. Across [Amazon]'s workforce, there is no room to say, 'It's 40 degrees, I'm going to take an extra five minutes to drink that water.'"
Henaway noted how essential the services of warehouse and delivery workers are.
"We all appreciate getting that package the next day, but behind that, it's not actually Amazon's technology," he said. "In Quebec, it's over 2,000 workers, who are 24 hours a day, seven days a week, making sure that people get what they need, on time and delivered to their doorstep, and those workers should be respected."
