Hundreds of workers at Amazon warehouses, Whole Foods grocery stores, Target retail stores, and delivery shoppers for Instacart and Shipt called in sick on Friday as part of a coordinated one-day strike across the United States. The action protested inadequate safety protections and working conditions during the coronavirus pandemic.
The May 1 walkout came after Amazon ended its unlimited unpaid time off policy for workers at the end of April. Derrick Palmer, an Amazon employee at the JFK8 warehouse in Staten Island, New York, said the timing of the policy change was deliberate. “Now they’re forcing people to go to work because if you run out of unpaid time off, that’s it, you’re fired,” he said. Palmer noted that after earlier protests, Amazon began providing personal protective equipment and enforcing social distancing and temperature checks, but that cleaning procedures remained inadequate.
At Target, workers complained that the company was slow to provide protective equipment and did little to enforce social distancing in stores. Sophie Haras, a Target employee in Hadley, Massachusetts, said guidelines were regularly ignored by staff and customers, and that the store did not count customers at all. Michelle Enright, a 28-year department specialist at a Target in Sterling Heights, Michigan, said: “There is no support from Target corporate. What we want to do is make the point we are humans, we can get sick, and we’re not just pieces of a machine.” A Target spokesperson said the concerns came from “a very small minority” and that most of its 340,000 frontline workers were proud of their role.
Whole Foods workers, who staged their first sick-out on March 31, joined the May 1 action with demands including increased hazard pay, paid sick leave for those isolating, and closure of stores when workers test positive for Covid-19. At least two Whole Foods employees have died from the virus, and more than 200 have tested positive. Organiser Dan Steinbrook said the company had failed to provide protective measures despite complaints, a letter from 14 state attorneys general, and concerns raised with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A Whole Foods spokesperson said the safety of team members was the company’s top priority.
The coordinated protest highlighted ongoing tensions between retail workers and large employers over health and safety during the pandemic. Workers across multiple companies have called for stronger measures to protect those on the front line of essential services.
