Amazon workers to walk out amid coronavirus outbreak

As Instacart continues to make plans for a strike, Amazon workers at the Staten Island Facility plan a walkout on Monday for the company’s mishandling of the coronavirus outbreak. Yahoo Finance’s Alexis Christoforous, Brian Sozzi and Dan Howley discuss the details.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: But I want to bring back in our very own tech editor, Dan Howley. Dan, Amazon workers-- looks like they're stepping up here and want the tech giant to just better help and navigate the coronavirus situation.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. There are workers in Staten Island. There could be as many as 10 to more than 100 at a Staten Island fulfillment facility who say they want to strike today, basically saying that the company isn't providing them with the proper protection that they would need to ensure they don't come down with coronavirus. They're saying they want to have more distancing between folks, as well as more protections if they have to go out.

And that's something that we're seeing across the board with these types of companies that really are part of the frontline when it comes to providing consumers with the goods that they need as we see these shutdowns continue. So obviously, a big issue out of this facility.

Amazon has its own comment. We can show you that in our graphic real quick. Basically what they're saying is, we are following all guidelines from local health officials and are taking extreme measures to ensure the safety of all employees at our site. Our teams on site are speaking directly with employees each day to hear their questions and discuss options that are available in this ever-changing environment.

So obviously, Mic-- Amazon, rather, taking this very seriously. And they don't want to see a larger scale kind of breakdown of the workers inside their facilities. They don't want to see facilities shut down en masse. So they're trying to, I think, nip this in the bud and basically say, look, we're doing our best. We want to ensure that all our workers are taken care of, and that's what we're doing.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And Dan, I see that Instacart having some problems as well. I know last week, the food delivery service said it was going to hire something like 300,000 more-- that's a huge amount of people-- to help get essentials to people's homes. But now it looks like Instacart workers might actually strike. What are they asking for in particular?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, it's the same basic idea here as Amazon as well. They want better protection against the virus. They want to be able to get access to things like hand sanitizers, ensure that they aren't being put in any kind of harm's way, because look, these people, if they can't get to their job, you know, they may not get paid. Amazon has said that if you get sick, you come down with something, you're quarantined, we're going to pay you regardless.

But with Instacart, you know, that may not be the same take that the company has, simply because some people are contract. Some people are full-time. When it comes here, though, they again want access to basic things like hand sanitizer, which Instacart has said they are going to be doing.

So it really is just a means for these people to come out and say, we want to make sure that we don't get infected. We want to try as hard as possible to stay healthy, to be able to provide the services that we're providing. And it seems that their way of doing that is to really try to hammer these companies with the idea that they may walk out or do a sick out or strike.

BRIAN SOZZI: Dan, do you think the next shoe to drop here is with these third-party food delivery chains? I drove past my local Chipotle over the weekend twice. And a lot of these third-party delivery, the people are waiting outside of Chipotle and a lot of other restaurants waiting to pick up the orders. They're not social distancing. They're pretty much standing arm to arm. And to be honest with you, it was pretty disturbing.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, I mean, that's something that also has been coming up, is these delivery workers, how they're kind of trying to ensure that they're able to stay distant enough from even not just the each other when they're lined up outside, but the actual deliveries that they're making to consumers, they want to make sure that they're not close enough to them. They've talked about kind of hands-off delivery. There's been that kind of idea going around with different types of services like that.

So we might start to see more about that coming-- think something like Grubhub or Seamless, Uber Eats potentially with these kinds of handoff deliveries that they have now. We could see that kind of spread out across the board.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Is this an issue, Dan, just across the board for these delivery service companies or is somebody in the mix doing it better than others, and maybe those companies can use them as a blueprint throughout this pandemic?

DAN HOWLEY: I really think it's just across the board. You know, these companies were built around the idea that we would be able to interact with the workers all the time and that the workers would be able to do their jobs all the time. None of this was built up with a pandemic taken into account. I think they're all trying to learn on the fly.

And you know, it is difficult. These are large companies. They're a large amount of people, and getting all of them the kind of protections that they need could prove difficult. But look, if they want to continue to operate, that's what they're going to have to do. And that's clearly what the employees themselves are saying by saying they would walk out or they would strike or have a sick out.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Dan, what about hazard pay? Are they asking for things like that, these workers? In addition to saying, look, we need the tools to keep ourselves safe, are they saying, hey, how about paying us more? And what are the companies saying to that?

DAN HOWLEY: You know, some industries are doing that. I know AT&T said that they're going to be giving a 20% bonus for hazard pay for their own frontline workers. Those are the folks that are working the poles and the lines to ensure that the internet stays up for people. And considering we're all working from home now-- or a large part of the workforce is working from home-- that's a big deal.

So some companies are stepping up with hazard pay in certain situations. But as far as companies like the delivery food companies go or the grocery delivery companies go, haven't heard anything quite yet.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right. Dan Howley, we'll leave it there.