Amazon warehouse workers in Rock Tavern, New York walked off the job this week after months of reporting unsafe conditions to a company that responded by deleting their complaints. Literally deleting them. Amazon has an internal feedback system called “Voice of the Associate,” and when workers used it to flag dangerous conveyor belt speeds and falling packages, management scrubbed the posts. The injury rate at that facility hit 6.3 per 100 workers, with 97 percent of those injuries severe enough to require missed days or restricted duty. Amazon’s response to that number was not to slow the belts. It was to speed up the write-ups.
The Teamsters backed the walkout. Amazon will call it a disruption. It is a disruption. That’s the point. You don’t get to build a suggestion box, empty it into the trash every night, and then act surprised when people stop asking nicely.