Amazon employees at its facility in Staten Island are planning to stage a walkout on due to the alleged mishandling of its coronavirus pandemic response.
Workers at the Amazon Staten Island warehouse in New York will conduct a walkout on Monday to protest the company's decision to keep the facility open despite news of a confirmed case of the coronavirus there last week.
Christian Smalls, an assistant manager at the facility, is leading the walkout. Smalls claims that many more employees have tested positive for the virus at the facility than the company has publicly acknowledged.
He says that as many as five to seven workers have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.
However, an Amazon spokesperson emphasized in a statement that the company's top priority is the health and safety of its employees.
The spokesperson said the company "recently implemented daily temperature screenings in our operations sites as an additional preventative measure to support the health and safety of our customers and employees."
"We believe direct communication is the best avenue to discuss feedback, and our teams onsite are speaking directly with employees each day to hear their questions and discuss options that are available in this ever changing environment," the spokesperson added.
Smalls said the walkout will start at 12:30 p.m. and could involve anywhere between 50 and 200 people, after which the employees will convene at a nearby public bus stop and speak to the press.
He explained: "The plan is to cease all operations until the building is closed and sanitized. We're not asking for much. We're asking the building to be closed and sanitized, and for us to be paid."
Smalls, who said he manages roughly 500 to 600 people on a weekly basis, argued that he has been seeking help from the facility's general manager everyday for the past week but to no avail.
