Amazon workers at several facilities are on strike and a new report alleges the company is ignoring employee safety.
Transcript:
Conway Gittens: The Dow staged a minor recovery Thursday after the federal reserve’s interest rate outlook prompted an 1100-point drop the day before. The rest of the market added to losses. On the bright side, November existing home sales were the strongest since March. Sales were up 6.1 percent over the past 12 months, which is the best annual gain in nearly 3-1/2 years. The median sales price rose to $406,100.
Turning to other business headlines, in what the Teamsters union calls the biggest-ever work stoppage at Amazon, seven locations have been hit with a workers strike. Drivers at facilities in Queens, Atlanta, San Francisco, a suburb of Chicago, and three in South California are participating.
Workers are calling on the world’s second-largest private employer to come to the bargaining table. They complain Amazon’s aggressive order fulfillment targets are taking a toll on their health. The striking workers, however, are just a small fraction of the more than 800,000 employed by Amazon, across 600 locations. Because of that, the strike is not expected to have a big impact on Amazon’s wide distribution network as the holiday shopping season enters its home stretch.
The strike, however, does represent a growing problem for Amazon: worker dissatisfaction. Even a Senate report sided with workers, saying Amazon is pushing warehouse workers to the brink, causing a spike in on-the-job injuries. As a result, Amazon could face fines of up to $100,000, levied by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration.
Amazon says the data used for the report are misleading and it takes seriously the health and safety of its workers.
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