KENT, Wash. — Just after months of remaining embattled more than its response into the coronavirus, Amazon is working to influence the general public that its workplaces — specifically, the warehouses where it merchants all the things from toys to hand sanitizer — are Protected throughout the pandemic.
The giant internet retailer has begun operating tv advertisements that present that its warehouse and shipping staff members have masks and also other protective gear. It's pushed out segments to area information stations touting its basic safety improvements. It's got questioned journalists to visit its warehouses to view for on their own.
Amazon is spreading its security message following a interval that Jeff Bezos, the organization’s chief executive, has named “the hardest time we’ve ever faced.” Because the coronavirus swept by The us, Amazon struggled to equilibrium a surge of orders While using the wellness problems in the one million employees and contractors at its warehouses and supply functions.
In many hundreds of its facilities, personnel became sick with Covid-19, and plenty of blamed the company. At the height of its crisis, just one Amazon govt explained he experienced Give up over the firings of workers who raised questions on workplace security in the pandemic.
Though Amazon has rolled out security changes, several staff and officials stated the measures ended up https://www.washingtonpost.com/newssearch/?query=마스크 unevenly deployed and came much too late.
But in new weeks, staff explained, some situations In the warehouses have enhanced. And the company, which was in emergency reaction manner in March and April, has resumed a far more frequent rhythm of business enterprise.
Amazon recently invited reporters into a fulfillment Middle in Kent, Clean., 20 miles south of Seattle, the place the organization relies. The The big apple Situations agreed to tour the power to begin to see the improvements that Amazon and a lot of workers round the country experienced described.
The power, which opened in 2016, stretches throughout more than one million sq. ft. The squat, mainly windowless structure sits in an industrial park surrounded by parking lots. Within, an unlimited web of conveyor belts crisscrosses the making, shifting amongst http://item.gmarket.co.kr/Item?goodscode=1788063676 regions where personnel stow solutions into robotic shelves and parts wherever the employees decide goods up through the cabinets. There are also workstations the place people today package deal the goods for shipping.
On a typical change, 600 to 800 employees get the job done there. A lot of the making naturally has tiny human interaction because the get the job done spots are spaced much aside.
But some higher-site visitors areas have improved. The human assets desk has put up partitions of plexiglass so individuals can even now chat face to face, that has a layer of separation. There is tape throughout the warehouse marking out 6-foot increments for social distancing. Sanitizer stations are common; before they had been scarce.
The greatest transformation is on the constructing’s entryway, a broad foyer space with tall turnstiles. Personnel would Formerly pass through the turnstiles and begin their shift. Now every time they get there, They may be channeled past thermal cameras, manned by colleagues, to choose their temperatures. At a small stand enclosed in plexiglass, a employee stands using a stack of masks, that are handed out working with prolonged tongs.
Soon after employees pass through the temperature checks, they see a glass-walled home that Formerly was useful for schooling. The home is part of the Amazon pilot software to check warehouse staff members for Covid-19, part of the $four billion that the business has stated it designs to invest in another couple of months to reply to the virus.
When employees enter the makeshift tests Middle, they scan their organization badge. They are really handed, by way of forceps, a test kit for that virus. The compact plastic bag, which is marked which has a biohazard image, contains a swab and take a look at-tube-like container. Personnel can go to 1 of several places with tables to stick to Guidelines on how to administer the examination. Then they seal their exam package and put it in a environmentally friendly bin.
An worker of Concentra, a business that gives place of work wellness treatment, is on hand to give the health care oversight desired for self-administered checks.
Amazon claimed in excess of one,000 of the a lot more than three,000 personnel at the ability were analyzed to the coronavirus.
Employees even now appear and go. They seize lunch within the crack space and also have a smoke outside the house. Those people are signs that enterprise is finding back again to regular.
Within the early phases of your pandemic, Amazon centered on transport crucial solutions, like hand sanitizer and diapers. But the Kent warehouse also packed solutions to fulfill customers’ other whims — outside lights, blenders, car or truck-washing materials and a lot more.
Amazon has employed one hundred seventy five,000 temporary workers — including about 1,000 at this warehouse on your own — to face in for workers who stayed house during the early section of the pandemic and that will help meet up with need that rivaled its peak holiday year. Now nearly all People employees are already supplied long lasting roles.
Emilie Deschamps, a worker whom Amazon licensed to talk publicly, joined the warehouse in Oct. She reported the greatest adjust hadn’t been Bodily but, somewhat, how Amazon had modified crack occasions to stagger them and lower congestion. The organization also gave individuals beyond regular time to scrub their hands, she claimed.
“Honestly, it’s been Okay thus far,” Ms. Deschamps said.
Even with perform stations spaced significantly aside, personnel pass closely by each other occasionally, equally as you may perhaps see at a food market or on the sidewalk.