By Dave Allison
dallison@thetimesweekly.com
The workers at the Amazon MDW2 facility are concerned for their safety until a full investigation of a series of written and telephone threats riddled with racist hate rhetoric geared towards Black workers has been done.
“The handwriting is literally on the walls,” said Andrew Herrera, a spokesman for Warehouse Workers for Justice. Amazon workers say they were confronted with racist graffiti on the bathroom walls last week, followed the next day by anonymous threatening phone calls directed at black workers.
“Amazon claims to have contacted law enforcement and that it was determined that there was no credible threat,” according to Tommy Carden, an organizer for Warehouse Workers for Justice.
“The only thing Amazon would offer to workers who fear for their safety on the job is voluntary time off, with no pay,” Carden explained. No one should have to choose between their safety and a paycheck.”
Recent massacres in Buffalo and Uvalde have heightened the fear factor among the workers, who said they want the plant shut down until the company mounts a full investigation and identifies the perpetrators.
“What the workers want are assurances that the company will implement safety protocols and develop policies that will address such incidents in the future,” Carden said. “Workers also want to be paid during the time that the plant is closed.”
In a statement issued by the Warehouse Workers for Justice shortly after the incidents, the organization stressed that “we are there to uplift the concerns that the workers have and ensure that this is no longer an active threat. Workers for Amazon want the company to have a clear policy in place and to make sure that everyone involved is getting the solid information that they need to feel safe in the workplace.
“Everyone deserves safe working conditions and it’s up to employers to make sure no one has to wonder if they’ll make it home from their shift alive,” said Carden.
