Amazon suspended more than 50 employees who refused to work in the warehouse after a fire broke out in it
| Yael Alantan, Devar News
At least 50 Amazon (NASDAQ:) employees have been suspended after refusing to return to work following a fire that broke out at the site. The fire broke out in a garbage compactor at the Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York, last Monday, and raised the concern of the workers for their health due to the heavy smoke that was in the warehouse.
The fire ignited an already murky labor relationship. The approximately 650 workers on the night shift feared that the air in the warehouse would harm their health, and approximately 100 of them decided to protest during the shift by sitting in front of the company’s human resources offices, demanding that they be sent back home, but that they be paid the wages for the shift they had to leave due to the accident.
The managers of the complex sent the night shift workers home, but asked them to return to work as usual the following day. About 100 employees feared for their health and did not return, and in response Amazon suspended at least 50 of the employees who sat down for an indefinite period even though it will currently pay their wages.
Labor relations in the warehouse were murky even before the smoke of the fire, after the warehouse workers made history and established a trade union, and since then any activity by one of the parties is interpreted as part of Amazon’s overall fight to break up the union, or of the committee determined to protect the rights of the workers at the site and the right to unionize.
Amazon spokesman Paul Flannigan said the company asked all night shift workers to report to their shifts that same day, after the fire department confirmed the building was safe.
“While most of the workers reported to work, a small group refused to return, but remained in the building without permission.”
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