Amazon faces a rash of strikes and protests at sites across Europe as warehouse workers lash out over what they say are gruelling labor conditions, minimal protection and the risk of infection after several employees tested positive for coronavirus.

The outrage in Italy, Spain and France — among the countries worst-hit by the virus — is testing the e-commerce giant's ability to keep operating its labor-intensive warehouses amid surging demand and radical containment measures.

Like other tech giants, Amazon has ordered office staff to work from home and abide by social distancing rules rolled out in many countries. But at the vast warehouses where the company processes orders for shipment, known as fulfilment centers, workers are still expected to show up and in many cases work overtime to meet exploding demand — including in Italy, which is currently the outbreak's global epicenter and where millions of people are under orders to remain home.

“This is crazy," said Gianpaolo Meloni, a worker at a fulfilment center in Castel San Giovanni, in northern Italy. "I can’t walk in the streets because the police will stop me if I don’t have a proper reason. Why do I have to go into the fulfilment center and work surrounded by thousands of people?”

In a statement to POLITICO detailing its coronavirus response, an Amazon spokesperson said the firm had increased cleaning at all facilities, canceled non-critical meetings and introduced social distancing measures including removing or spacing out furniture at warehouses and staggering employees' breaks, in addition to encouraging them to wash their hands. The firm has also pledged to give employees who are diagnosed with coronavirus or placed in quarantine up to two weeks of pay.

“This company is using our health to make a big fortune" — Agnieszka Mróz, packer in Amazon’s warehouse in Poznań, Poland

“As demand continues to increase, we are working to ensure we can continue to deliver to the most impacted customers while keeping our people safe," the statement read. “We also have a process in place so that employees who are unable to work overtime for personal reasons are able to speak with managers and map out a schedule that works for them."

But such measures are far from being enough for many Amazon workers. Under financial pressure, many say they have no choice but to keep working, and they are outraged that the company has kept operating warehouses in Italy and Spain even after employees in those locations tested positive for the virus.

In Italy, the Italian General Confederation of Labor (CGIL) has organized a strike at the warehouse in Castel San Giovanni and announced a “state of agitation” in other facilities in Piedmont and Passo Corese, near Rome. In France, 200-300 workers protested outside their warehouse in Saran, a city south of Paris, demanding Amazon close it down.

Meanwhile, Spanish union Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO) has lodged an official complaint to labor authorities about Amazon's response to the crisis, and in Poland unionized workers — who are actually serving the German market — voiced outrage over their working conditions.

“People are afraid,” said Agnieszka Mróz, a packer in Amazon’s warehouse in Poznań in western Poland and an activist at Inicjatywa Pracownicza (the Workers' Initiative), a trade union. “This company is using our health to make a big fortune."

'We are giving our lives'

The growing outrage in Europe underscores a paradox for Amazon, whose share price has so far held up better than other Silicon Valley giants during the crisis: The virus is a direct risk to the health of thousands of warehouse workers, but demand is off the charts.

To keep up with the surge, the company has said it would hire 100,000 additional workers in the U.S., and will no longer take in non-essential goods from third-party sellers, who account for about a third of the total offerings on the site.

But for the workers and unions in Europe, bringing in more people will only compound the risk of transmission, and put them at greater risk. The very nature of the job, they argue — criss-crossing other workers in a race to grab and stack packages and meet numerical productivity targets — goes against the principle of social distancing.

“If we have to wash our hands additionally, workers will be afraid to do it in fear that they will not meet their targets,” said Mróz.

Workers in Poland, where Amazon does not operate a web shop, are particularly aggrieved as they have yet to benefit from the hourly wage increases that Amazon has rolled out in other countries (of $2 in the U.S., £2 in the U.K. and €2). Amazon says it is negotiating a salary increase with Polish union representatives.

Mróz — one of 11,000 workers from the villages surrounding Amazon's Poznań warehouse to hitch a bus ride to work each day — says Polish workers like her earn 20 zlotys (around €4.40) per hour before tax, far below what their colleagues in the eurozone are earning.

“Polish people are coming from their villages to send boxes to Germany. We are giving our lives and our health to bring more profit to [Amazon boss] Jeff Bezos,” she added.

For Meloni in Italy, the need to meet targets is particularly intense for workers on temporary contracts, known internally as "green badges" because of the color of their identifying badges. Such workers are more likely to overlook health warnings to keep their jobs.

“It’s very easy to find green badges running around, or not doing the work safely. When green badges have a temperature, they ignore it because they need to work,” he said.

Mick Rix, national officer at British trade union GMB, echoed those concerns, saying that the physical demands of work in fulfilment centers could make them more vulnerable to infection. “Amazon employees have no options whatsoever. They do this or they go work elsewhere,” he said.

“Amazon workers are on the front lines of this crisis” — Christy Hoffmann, general secretary of UNI Global Union

So far, the company has avoided stricter regulation in the European Union while sticking by its policy of not negotiating with unions on work conditions. But as the tide of union outrage, protests and strikes grows higher, the firm could be pushed into a corner.

“Amazon workers are on the front lines of this crisis,” Christy Hoffmann, the general secretary of Switzerland-based UNI Global Union, said in a statement that also demanded that Amazon provide protective gear to its workers. “Amazon needs to negotiate with unions to ensure worker safety and smoothly functioning supply chains."

In France, where the loudest protests have broken out, the government has signalled it wants Amazon to change its practices. The pressure Amazon puts on its employees is “unacceptable and we'll let Amazon know,” Economy and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told France Inter.

Louise Guillot contributed reporting.

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