Shortly before 11 p.m. on Wednesday evening, an Amazon worker was fatally struck by a box truck at the logistic giant’s JFK8 facility in Staten Island, New York. The victim, who has since been identified as Leony Salcedo-Chevalier, 34, was hit when the truck was backing up at the loading dock of the Amazon fulfillment center. Emergency responders rushed the worker to Richmond University Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
According to a statement by the Amazon Labor Union made shortly after, word quickly spread across the facility and night shift workers were sent home around 2 a.m., while day shift employees were initially informed of a delayed start. By 10 a.m., they received notification that the facility would be closed for the day, with all workers assured they would be compensated for the missed time.
Soon after the incident, Amazon released a brief statement expressing their condolences but was quick to note that neither the victim nor the driver were direct Amazon employees. Instead they relied on their classification as third-party workers to avoid responsibility for the unsafe conditions they impose on both their employees and their contractors, and absolve themselves of any blame.
Amazon’s use of third-party vendors for parts of their operations, especially in their middle- and last-mile delivery systems, is a mechanism for the trillion-dollar company to bypass culpability for their unsafe working conditions, all while imposing their demanding metrics, including long hours, high delivery quotas, and the pressure to maintain a rapid pace of work. According to a study conducted by CBS News last year that looked into six years of monthly Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) unsafe driving rates, Amazon trucking contractors had rates that were at least 89 percent higher every month compared to other logistics carriers.
Indeed, workers at Amazon facilities across the country, including at JFK8, have been sounding the alarm about terrible working conditions and the lack of safety precautions for years, both inside the warehouse as well as for delivery drivers. In the face of their unrealistic quotas and lack of protections, Amazon delivery drivers have long spoken about feeling compelled to rush and break rules to be able to do the job. And despite claiming that their injury rates have fallen in their warehouses, Amazon still boasts the highest injury rates in the industry at almost double compared to other logistics operators..
Workers at JFK8, who won union recognition three years ago and are still fighting for their first contract, have often talked about the centrality of the fight for safer working conditions. Last December, as part of a national Amazon strike at unionized facilities, hundreds of workers at the Staten Island facility walked off the job, demanding that the company come to the bargaining table.
In an interview with Left Voice during the time, warehouse worker Aaron Novick noted the really high injury rates in the warehouses, with young workers incurring debilitating injuries that take years to recuperate from. Another worker, Arlene Kingston, compared the working conditions in the warehouses as “modern day slavery.” “It is not picking cotton and getting beaten,” she said, but “we’re getting beaten in a tactical way.”
In the wake of their co-worker’s death on Wednesday, workers from both shifts came together to demand that Amazon temporarily shut down the facility so they could mourn. This event exemplifies solidarity in the face of brutal exploitation and highlights a struggle that is crucial not only for Amazon workers but for workers across the industry. Given the company’s significant influence on just-in-time supply chains, which rely on increasingly precarious and unsafe working conditions, the fight for safe and humane working environments at Amazon is, quite literally, a matter of life and death.
As warehouse worker and officer of Amazon Labor Union Sultana Hossain said, “in the way that it is growing unchecked, in the way that Amazon disregards our rights, the law, it’s a struggle that we all have to take on to stop it.”
