Amazon: Nearly 20,000 workers tested positive for COVID-19

New York, October 2

Amazon stated on Thursday that just about 20,000 of its front-line US employees had examined positive or been presumed positive for the virus that causes COVID-19.

But the net retail behemoth, revealing the information for the primary time, stated that the an infection price of its staff was nicely under that seen within the normal US inhabitants.

The disclosure comes after months of stress from Amazon employees and labour teams calling for the corporate to disclose the COVID-19 numbers.

Amazon stated in a company weblog that it offered the information as a part of its effort to maintain staff knowledgeable and to share particulars and greatest practices with governments and different corporations.

“We hope other large companies will also release their detailed learnings and case rates because doing so will help all of us,” Amazon stated, including: “This is not an arena where companies should compete — this is an arena where companies should help one another.”

The Seattle-based firm stated it examined knowledge from March 1 to September 19 on 1.37 million employees at Amazon and Whole Foods Market throughout the US.

It stated it in contrast the COVID-19 case charges to the overall inhabitants, as reported by Johns Hopkins University for a similar interval. Based on that evaluation, if the speed amongst Amazon and Whole Foods staff have been the identical as that for the overall inhabitants, it estimated it might have seen 33,952 circumstances amongst its workforce.

That is 42 per cent greater that Amazon’s precise price.

The firm additionally stated it’s conducting hundreds of checks a day, which might develop to 50,000 checks a day throughout 650 websites by November.

Companies haven’t any authorized obligation to publicly reveal what number of of their employees have contracted the virus and few are doing so.

Employers do have to offer a protected working atmosphere, which implies they have to alert workers if they could have been uncovered to the virus, in line with pointers from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the federal company that enforces office security.

They are additionally obligated to maintain monitor of COVID-19 infections contracted on the job and should report back to OSHA if there’s a hospitalisation or dying associated to the illness.

A perceived lack of transparency has left employees at numerous retailers, together with Amazon and Walmart, to grow to be newbie sleuths of their spare time.

Unions and advocate teams have taken up the trigger, too, creating lists or constructing on-line maps of shops the place employees can self-report circumstances they learn about.

In a press release emailed to The Associated Press on Thursday evening, Walmart stated “we believe that Walmart associates’ rate of infection tracks, or is below, the current rate of infection of the general public nationwide”. It didn’t clarify why it doesn’t present numbers.

Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents grocery and meatpacking employees, referred to as Amazon’s disclosure as “the most damning evidence we have seen that corporate America has completely failed to protect our country’s frontline workers in this pandemic”.

The UFCW is looking for quick motion by federal regulators and a full congressional investigation.

“This titanic safety failure demands the highest level of scrutiny,” Perrone stated. AP