◼ TECHNOLOGY Bloomberg Businessweek March 23, 2020
19THEBOTTOMLINE Amazonis ratchetingbackthekindsofitems
it’s taking in as it tries to vastly increase staffing to keep up with
demand for essentials.also take unpaid time off through the end of March
without risk of termination. Amazon doesn’t offer
paid sick leave to all workers, however, and seasonal
employees and contractors without it may not be
able to afford to miss a paycheck. Amazon, which
reported $11.9 billion in profits in 2019, says it has set
up a $25 million fund for contractors and part-time
workers who can apply for as much as two weeks’
pay if diagnosed with Covid-19 or quarantined.
In the U.S. alone, Amazon has hundreds of
warehouses, sorting centers, and other logistics
facilities. It’s capable of rerouting orders to other
locations to accommodate the temporary closure of
a building or two. It does something similar when
a warehouse becomes overwhelmed with orders
during the peak holiday shopping season, divert-
ing them from the overburdened facility to oth-
ers nearby until the backlog clears. Amazon has
also rerouted operations during floods, tornadoes,
and other natural disasters. That’d be tougher in
Europe, where there are fewer depots, or in the
U.S. if a string of nearby facilities also went offline,
according to logistics consultants and former
Amazon employees familiar with its network.
The company wasn’t at its most prepared to
replace sick workers. The beginning of the year,
just after the holiday shopping season, is when it
cuts ties with tens of thousands of temporary staff.
“You don’t design operations for this kind of thing,”
says Marc Wulfraat, a logistics consultant who tracks
Amazon’s network. “The only way to handle that
unplanned spike is more manpower.” Job listings in
Amazon’s logistics and operations unit have more
than tripled this month, to more than 4,000.
Amazon has told delivery companies to be ready
to shoulder an extended uptick in demand, and it’s
offering overtime and bonus pay in cities across the
U.S. for grocery shippers. An Amazon delivery com-
pany in Texas recently told its drivers they should
expect to work extra shifts over the next six weeks.
Even as the company tries to hire more peo-
ple, members of its existing workforce are hav-
ing second thoughts about reporting for duty. One
warehouse worker in the Midwest says she’s tak-
ing advantage of Amazon’s offer of unpaid time off
to care for her kids, whose schools have closed.
Some of her co-workers, she says, were scared
away by reports of coronavirus cases in the county
where the warehouse is located. Amazon posted
signs reminding employees to wash their hands and
set up extra hand sanitizer stations, but it hadn’t
been screening employees. “We are going to great
lengths to keep the buildings extremely clean and
help employees practice important precautions,”
the company said in a statement.
Union reps in Europe say that Amazon isn’t
taking the pandemic seriously enough and that it
shouldn’t be so eager to squeeze more people into
its warehouses. Julien Vincent, a representative with
the CFDT union who works at an Amazon ware-
house in Montelimar, in the south of France, says
his union asked the company to cut the number of
workers at its facilities, but that hasn’t happened.
“Fornowtheyhaven’tdoneanything,”Vincentsays.
“Thingsarecontinuinglikethingswerenormal.”
CustomersinLosAngeles,NewYork,Seattle,and
othermajorcitieshavereportedinthelasttwoweeks
thatthePrimeNowfastdeliveryprogram,designed
todeliverordersinaslittleasonehour,hasrepeat-
edlyshowednoopendeliveryslots,anindication
thecompanywasn’tabletoenticeenoughdrivers
tokeepupwithdemand.OnSundaythecompany
acknowledgeda technicalglitchthatdisrupteddeliv-
eriesforitsWholeFoodsandPrimeNowservices.
Contractorswhotakeshiftstobagdelivery
itemsatWholeFoodsstoresindozensofstates
wereofferedanextra$5anhourif theyworkedon
March16,accordingtoanemailthecompanysent
toitsgigeconomyworkers.Amazonalsoraisedthe
weeklycaponhoursforsuchworkersto60,up
froma typical 20 to30.
Thebonusandovertimepaywasn’tenoughfor
oneoccasionalWholeFoodsworkerintheDenver
area,whocanceleda shiftonSundayoutofcon-
cernthecompanywasn’tdoingenoughtoprotect
workersjostlingforproduceinaislescrowdedwith
shoppers.“Theyclaimtocareabouttheirworkers,
yetclearlynotenoughtoreinintwo-hour-delivery
expectations,”saystheworker,whospokeoncon-
ditionofanonymityforfearofreprisals.“Not
enoughtotellthemtostayhome.”WholeFoods
wascriticizedafterChiefExecutiveOfficerJohn
Mackeysuggestedthatworkerswithsparesick
leavedonateit tothoseinneed.Thecompanysays
it hassteppedupin-storesanitationprotocolsand
relaxedrulesaroundcallinginsick.
ManyofAmazon’sdeliverydriversarecontrac-
tors.ThecompanyissuedadvisoriestoAmazonFlex
drivers,whomakedeliveriesintheirownvehicles,
askingthemtostayhomeif they’vehada feverand
toavoidpersonalcontact.Butthat’salmostimpos-
siblefora personwhoferriesgroceriesorhasoffice
buildingsontheirpackageroute.Forthosedrivers,
whodon’tgetAmazonhealthbenefits,theextra
overtimestillmightnotmeantheycanaffordtoget
sick.�MattDay,DanieleLepido,HeleneFouquet,
Macarena Munoz Montijano, and Spencer Soper● Amazon has said it
plans to hire as many as100k