MINNEAPOLIS _ The Awood Center _ a Minneapolis-based workers' group that has garnered nationwide attention for pushing for better working conditions at Amazon's Eagan and Shakopee facilities _ has joined a newly formed national coalition aimed at contesting Amazon's growing market power and carbon footprint.
Amazon workers who are members of Awood were praised as "the courageous first in American worker pushback against the abuses of this corporation" by Dania Rajendra, director of Athena, the New York-based group that was publicly announced Tuesday morning.
The center, which represents East African workers, is one of about 40-plus organizations who have joined forces to launch Athena. The coalition brings together a wide swath of the growing number of critics of Amazon who have been raising concerns about everything from antitrust issues to digital surveillance to the working conditions in its fulfillment centers.
"We're a diverse coalition of people of color and immigrants, LGBTQ folks, working class people across the country _ everyone whose communities and livelihoods are affected by Amazon, plus advocates, policy experts, academics, activities and small business owners," Rajendra said. "Together, we're focused on making our democracy represent us all and creating a more healthy, sustainable and inclusive economy. And Amazon and other large corporations like it are in the way of that goal."
United for Respect, a group that has also been pushed Walmart to improve its pay and benefits for workers, also is part of the coalition as are some of those who were deeply involved in the resistance to Amazon's search for a second headquarters. After facing community backlash, Amazon earlier this year ended up pulling out of a plan to open a campus in New York City in a rare retreat for the online retailer.
To draw awareness to its efforts, Athena plans to hold several rallies and forums in the coming days across the country with some events timed to coincide with Black Friday and Cyber Monday. The event in Minneapolis, held Monday night, was a forum organized by Awood and sponsored by several unions about issues facing East African workers.
At the forum, a couple of Amazon workers said they want to ask the company to form a safety committee at its Eagan and Shakopee sites that would include workers who could suggest ideas to the company for how to reduce workplace injuries.
Ahmed Jama, 20, who has works at the Eagan delivery station said injuries are a growing concern, noting that am ambulance showed up just the day before after a worker collapsed.
Through a series of protests and walkouts over the last year and a half, some workers at Amazon's Twin Cities facilities have been raising complaints about everything from parking restrictions for workers to the speed at which workers must work in order to keep their jobs that they said often leads to injuries.
An investigative report published over the weekend by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting obtained internal injury rate data and found that serious injury rates at Amazon's fulfillment centers are more than double than the national average for the warehousing industry at 9.6 serious injuries per 100 full-time workers, compared to the industry average of 4.
According to the report, the Shakopee facility had 270 injuries in 2018, an injury rate of 12.8 per 100 workers.
An Amazon spokeswoman responded that its injury rates were high because it is aggressive about logging incidents and is careful about allowing workers to return to work following injuries.
