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Amazon Fires Worker Who Led Strike Over Coronavirus Working Conditions

   DailyWire.com
Amazon employees hold a protest and walkout over conditions at the company's Staten Island distribution facility on March 30, 2020 in New York City.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images

The Amazon warehouse worker who organized a strike to demand the company better protect its workers amid the coronavirus pandemic has been fired.

Chris Smalls said he was fired Monday after he organized the strike, CNBC confirmed. Amazon told the outlet that Smalls was fired because he ignored “multiple warnings for violating social distancing guidelines” and refused to quarantine himself even though he had contact with another worker who tested positive for COVID-19.

“Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite today, March 30, further putting the teams at risk,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC. “This is unacceptable and we have terminated his employment as a result of these multiple safety issues.”

Smalls released his own statement.

“Amazon would rather fire workers than face up to its total failure to do what it should to keep us, our families, and our communities safe,” Smalls said in a statement to media outlets. “I am outraged and disappointed, but I’m not shocked. As usual, Amazon would rather sweep a problem under the rug than act to keep workers and working communities safe.”

As The Daily Wire reported Monday, Smalls led a strike of workers at Amazon’s Staten Island warehouse whom he said were forced to go to work even though multiple workers tested positive for COVID-19.

“If a building tests positive you should shut it down and sanitize it,” Smalls told FOX Business. “That’s all we’re asking for. … If we don’t get a response today, then we’re going to City Hall.”

He told ABC News that he also requested Amazon pay back employees who used vacation or sick days to avoid contracting the virus.

“People are afraid to work. People are there working and they’re putting their lives at risk because there are a number of (coronavirus) cases that they are not aware of,” he told ABC News.

Smalls also said Amazon lied by saying just one worker tested positive for the virus. Smalls suggested as many as seven had contracted the virus and that he, as a management assistant, personally sent home the third person who tested positive. Smalls said the first woman who tested positive “already had time to spread it” by the time she left the facility.

“Her friend caught it. Her friend was the third case. She tested positive and she’s a supervisor in the pack department and the pack department is right before the items go out door to the customers. It’s dangerous,” he said.

Smalls said Monday that between 50 and 100 people planned to join him in walking off the job, but Amazon disputed that number to CNBC, saying just 15 people joined the walkout.

“Like all businesses grappling with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, we are working hard to keep employees safe while serving communities and the most vulnerable,” the company told CNBC in a statement. “The truth is the vast majority of employees continue to show up and do the heroic work of delivering for customers every day.”

Amazon in its statement also said the accusations that the company was not taking the virus seriously were “unfounded” and claimed it had taken “extreme measures” to ensure worker safety.

Workers at other facilities told CNBC that hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes are rationed and that Amazon simply isn’t doing enough to protect them.

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