In recent weeks, Amazon has raised wages for hourly workers and said it would let anyone concerned about coming into work to take unpaid time off through the end of April. After receiving criticism from lawmakers, it will also now allow anyone suspected of having Covid-19 or placed into quarantine to take two weeks of emergency paid sick leave. Prior to March 27, the company required that workers obtain a positive test result to use the benefit, but a nationwide testing shortage made that extremely difficult.

The following interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity.

Warehouse worker, early forties, Texas

My partner and I have both been working at Amazon for a few years. We’re awesome at what we do. I love the job itself, but I don’t like how the company handles people—almost like they’re disposable.

Since the virus came, for the last couple of weeks, we’ve taken advantage of the unpaid—not paid—time off. This next upcoming paycheck, I think I will be paid for six hours of work. I’m staying home because my mom, she had a pacemaker put in not too long ago, and she lives with me. We don’t want to go without money. In fact, I don’t know how we’re going to pay our bills this month. I’m down to about $200, and this stimulus check is probably not going to come for another month.

Amazon releases their own little news alerts, and one of them told us that we need to make sure we’re cleaning our scanners. They told us to do it—the people who are also working on the floor, who are also responsible for getting a certain number of packages out every shift. This is what kills me: When we walk through the main front doors, we hit these turnstiles to enter. Everyone has to touch them, and I have never, not one time in my life, seen anybody clean those things. I know that in my fulfillment center, we’ve got over 900 people who work there, and we have three entrances to choose from. All it’s going to take is one infected person.

You’ve got people that are working for $15 an hour, that now have to be excited that they’re making $17 an hour, going out there and basically putting their family at risk. If you’re saying our job is so damn important, and that everybody else should stay home, yet we have to show up like soldiers, why not protect us?

The day this interview was conducted, Amazon notified the worker about a confirmed case of Covid-19 at their workplace.

Food vendor, early thirties, Ohio

I’ve been at my job for under a year. I wasn’t aware that I would specifically be vending at Amazon, and that it would be my only location. We run open air markets within the warehouse, where employees can go and purchase things for lunch, your typical chips, soda. We have a couple of different sandwiches and stuff in coolers, that sort of thing. It’s a big job, there’s a lot to do. During peak, which is usually around Christmastime, we can be there up to 11, 12 hours a day. But it’s starting to be more like that now, as Amazon is hiring more and more people to keep up with demand for essential items. They just hired another 100 people today.

I feel like this job is essential because people need deliveries, but it’s also essential for me because I need the money to feed my family. Amazon Warehouse Worker

My employer never gave us any specific guidelines as far as social distancing goes. It’s kind of impossible to socially distance with our jobs, because our storage room is so small. They had us take out at least 70 percent of the microwaves, in the hopes that things would be more spaced out in the break rooms. But the problem is now we have an overwhelming amount of employees trying to use way fewer microwaves. An employee asked today if we had any milk crates, because there’s not enough chairs. So we have people sitting on the floor, in the hallways, because there just simply isn’t enough room for everyone to be spaced 6 feet apart. [In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson says the company has "recently implemented a new policy: individuals who intentionally violate our social distancing guidelines will receive two warnings—on the second documented offense, termination may occur."]