Tennessee, Wilmington, Delaware and Memphis are also at risk of staff shortages, the report found. This means that during the year, the number of employees leaving the company was equivalent to the total number working there at the beginning of the year – up an additional 23 percent. The national average for warehouse and transport wear was 46% in 2019 and 59% in 2020. While for retail work, the average in 2019 was 58% and in 2020 it was 70%. In September, the company’s CEO Andy Jassy said in an interview with CNBC: “For us, employee safety is the first priority for us at fulfillment centers.”
Jassy took over as CEO from founder Jeff Bezos in July 2021. Jose Pagan, pictured here, said he was fired electronically after taking two days off to deal with an infected tooth. Pagan said he did not have enough notice to use the holidays and did not have enough free time without pay, which led to his termination. He went on to say that although he had a doctor’s note, the company did not care. Pagan worked for a week after his health problems and found out he was fired when he showed up at work one night and found that his key card was not working. He was then told that he was no longer working for the company. Pagan went to an HR spokesman who told him that the company would welcome him back in 90 days and in the meantime he should try to find a job as a driver with Uber or Grubhub. At the time of his dismissal, Pagan was on the verge of promotion. A former manager said: “It was almost impossible to get fired as an employee” Michael Garrigan said: “They were so concerned about the loss and loss of people that they withdrew all the policies we had to impose as directors.” Garrigan said managers joked that they did not bother to write to employees because HR would “exclude” it. He said: “It was almost impossible to get fired as a worker.”
Jassy said in part: “We do not seek to be mediocre. We want to be better in the classroom. We still have a long way to go. ”
The workers who survived the tornado later filed a lawsuit against the construction company that built the facility. In it, the plaintiffs said that there was no suitable shelter inside, KMOV reported in May 2022. According to the More Perfect Union activist group, two workers died at the Bessemer, Alabama facility within 24 hours of each other. The team said one of the dead was denied by HR his request to go home. Hours later he suffered a fatal stroke at work.