UPDATED 23:53 EDT / APRIL 02 2020

POLICY

Amazon announces new strategy to cope with COVID-19 amid scandal over fired worker

Amid waves of criticism for how Amazon.com Inc. has dealt with the spread of coronavirus, the company said on Thursday that big changes are on the way.

Amazon told Reuters that starting next week it will start giving face masks and temperature checks to all its warehouses workers in the U.S. and Europe. Amazon-owned Whole Foods staff will also receive the same. Anyone who shows a temperature of over 100.4 Fahrenheit will not gain entrance to the site.

The company said that it will also start using machine learning technology and security cameras to monitor staff and ensure they are practicing social distancing. The new measures will take place at all of Amazon’s 700 U.S. and European facilities as well as its 508 Whole Food stores.

Earlier this week, Amazon faced an avalanche of criticism for firing a worker named Chris Smalls who led a protest at one of its facilities in New York. About 60 fulfillment center workers walked out in protest, stating that Amazon wasn’t doing enough to protect them.

New York Attorney General Letitia James called Amazon “immoral and inhumane,” saying Smalls had every legal right to organize and Amazon may have broken the law for retaliating the way it did.

Things got worse after Amazon held to a meeting to discuss what action should be taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at its facilities. Chief Executive Jeff Bezos was present, as were many of the company’s high-ranking executives. Vice obtained notes from that meeting, and it seems the executives discussed smearing Smalls as a public relations strategy.

“He’s not smart, or articulate, and to the extent the press wants to focus on us versus him, we will be in a much stronger PR position than simply explaining for the umpteenth time how we’re trying to protect workers,” Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky wrote in notes that were passed on to other executives.

Those notes described how Amazon would discredit Smalls’ actions and show that in leading the walkout he was “immoral” and what he did was “unacceptable.” Zapolsky wrote that if Smalls’ was discredited, so would any other labor movement at Amazon’s facilities.

“Make him the most interesting part of the story, and if possible make him the face of the entire union/organizing movement,” wrote Zapolsky. The executive later said he made those notes while frustrated, adding, “I let my emotions draft my words and get the better of me.”

Photo: Mike Seyfang/Flickr

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