'Summer Was Scary': Amazon Fined for Not Giving Workers Enough Shade, Water

The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued three citations against Amazon for exposing its workers to dangerous heat conditions over the summer, including not reminding them to take breaks and forcing them to shelter in the shade underneath a plane, the Warehouse Workers Resource Center announced on Wednesday. The agency has also ordered the company to pay a total of $14,625 in fines. 

The citations allege that Amazon ramp workers at KSBD, the company’s San Bernardino air hub, were not given proper shade in which to take state-mandated heat breaks. Rather, the company used the shade underneath one of the planes on the tarmac as its shady area. 

“The employer utilized the shadow under the Boeing 767-300 as shade in the ramp area for employees to take their preventive cool-down rest,” the citation states. “The employees only stand and are not able to rest and sit in a normal posture while under the aircraft for preventive cool-down rest.” Amazon also “provided a van that was inadequate to accommodate the number of employees on recovery or rest periods, so that they can sit in a normal posture fully in the shade without having to be in physical contact with each other.” 

The citations also allege that ramp workers were not given enough water, and that it was “not readily accessible” for workers on the plane. Additionally, Amazon “failed to encourage the frequent drinking of water,” the citation stated. For each violation of not providing shade and water to employees, the company was ordered to pay $6,750. 

The Warehouse Workers Resource Center said in its statement that daily temperatures at the warehouse are frequently over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and even reached 106 degrees in late July last year. Because it did not provide sufficient training to its workers on safety and heat illness prevention, Amazon was ordered to pay an additional $1,125. 

“We saw that Amazon was more concerned with loading and unloading the planes as fast as possible than with our safety,” said Regina Hermann, who works on the ramp at the Amazon air hub, in a statement. “We work out on the tarmac without enough shade and sometimes without enough water. Last summer was scary. It got so hot and we did not always have enough water to drink or time to let our bodies cool down. We sometimes had to crouch or stand under the planes for shade. We knew we had to do something before someone was seriously injured.” Workers have previously undertaken organizing efforts at KSBD, though they have not officially voted to unionize. 

Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel told Motherboard in a statement that, “We disagree with the three citations issued to KSBD and are appealing them.” 

Lynch Vogel continued to say that Amazon encourages employees to take breaks, and that its heat safety protocols included air conditioning at all air hubs, as well as fans and heat training. The facilities also had “powerbreeze fans and five portable misters on the ramp, ramp crew vans with air conditioning, cooling towels, pallets of ice and bottled water at the gates, and more than 60 water coolers around the facility,” she said. 

Motherboard has reported extensively on the dangers that logistics workers face due to heat, as well as the often unsafe conditions inside Amazon warehouses. Amazon has previously been cited six times by the Department of Labor for "failing to keep workers safe" from ergonomic hazards, due to fast-paced heavy lifting to meet production requirements.