On Monday night, around 650 Staten Island workers at an Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) facility participated in a "work stoppage" to protest "abnormally dangerous working conditions" resulting from a fire in the facility only a few hours earlier. The next day, at least 50 of the workers who had protested were suspended, with pay.
After the Monday afternoon fire, day shift workers were sent home with pay, but night shift workers were told to report to their shifts. Night shift workers who arrived on site soon after the fire were directed to wait in the break room while the situation was resolved. The workers told management that they were concerned over possibly inhaling toxic fumes caused by the fire, but they were not sent home.
"They were saying 'we don't feel safe, we don't feel safe to work,'" Derrick Palmer, the vice president of the Amazon Labor Union, said.
While roughly 100 workers eventually held a sit-down protest in the main office to demand that their shifts be cancelled with pay, others walked out.
"While the vast majority of employees reported to their workstations, a small group refused to return to work and remained in the building without permission," Amazon Spokesperson Paul Flaningan said.
On Wednesday evening, another fire broke out at a different New York Amazon warehouse near Albany. Amazon sent home workers with pay and has already announced that it is cancelling Thursday's shifts, also with pay.
"Out of an abundance of caution, we sent night shift employees home with pay and cancelled Thursday's day shift," Flanagan said. "These employees will also be paid. We are grateful for the swift actions of first responders and the employees who handled the situation appropriately."
While the Staten Island facility has already voted in favor of unionization, the location near Albany is set to vote on unionizing next week. Amazon has filed more than two dozen complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to try to have the Staten Island vote overturned.
Amazon said that it suspended the Staten Island workers while it investigates the incident. According to Flannagan, the company respects workers' rights to protest but draws the line at protestors occupying active work spaces.
In Alabama, another Amazon warehouse caught on fire on Monday, just one week after it had caught fire the first time. Like the Staten Island workers, the Alabama employees were told to return to work as usual.
"Our plant caught on fire again. This time it was in the same area, but it was a couple aisles over," an Amazon worker told reporters in Alabama. "We opened up Sunday again after being closed for almost a week. You could still smell smoke in there. Half the warehouse was off limits."
While Amazon says that both of the fires in New York occurred in compactor machines, the Alabama employees said the fires in their facility started amongst the warehouse inventory.
"It's just funny that last Monday our warehouse caught on fire in the same area," one Alabama worker told reporters. "I was told from other employees as we were sitting out there wondering what in the heck was going on they said boxes caught on fire. So they're thinking maybe lithium batteries. And then a majority of us, we don't feel safe, I mean, we think they sent us back to work too soon."
Fire response units asked people to avoid the area around the Alabama facility while the fires were contained. According to Huntsville Assistant Fire Marshal Trent Bennett, it's not clear where the fires started, but the response was significant.
"I don't have a specific area of where it's starting at. The only thing that I could just tell you is that we just had a huge response to it," Bennett told reporters. "We had five engine trucks and two ladder trucks that responded. There were no injuries there...that's all the info[rmation] I have at this time because it's still under investigation."
Lithium batteries are currency a hot commodity, metaphorically and literally. Most electric vehicles rely on lithium batteries to run, and those batteries are not cheap. Accidents involving these batteries can also come with a high cost: once a lithium battery catches fire, it is incredibly difficult to extinguish. Fires often take thousands of gallons of water and days of firefighter effort to put out.