Some essential workers at Amazon, Walmart, Target, and FedEx are reportedly planning a walkout strike Friday. 🔐
Health and safety are hand-in-hand concerns for pretty much everyone on the planet dealing with the coronavirus, and retail employees are no exception.
The heightened attention about warehouse workers’ safety and consumers’ increased appreciation for their efforts continue to rise during the pandemic. Whether the COVID-19 situation could lead to nonunion workers seeking representation remains to be seen. Emily Spieler, a professor of law at Northeastern University, said the walkout indicates just “how angry and anxious people are and that they have been moved to action as a result.
Meanwhile, the prospect of unionizing is being explored by some. Asked if representatives from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union had reached out to workers at Target Corp., Walmart and the other aforementioned companies about unionizing, a RWSDU-UFCW spokeswoman said they have been speaking with Amazon Inc. workers. “But they reached out to us, not the other way around,” the union spokeswoman said.
The spokeswoman said Amazon has procured millions of safety supplies and has invested nearly $700 million in increased pay. “Working globally with our teams and third parties we have gone to extreme measures to understand and address this pandemic with more than 150 process changes to date,” she said.
”While we take them seriously, the concerns raised are from a very small minority. The vast majority of our more than 340,000 frontline team members have expressed pride in the role they are playing in helping provide for families across the country during this time of need,” the statement read. “When concerns have been brought to our attention, we’ve taken additional action, including increasing the frequency of overhead announcements and adding more signage.
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