As Amazon’s Prime Day 2022 gets underway, some of the company’s employees are urging customers to boycott the sale as they beg for an end to their lengthy workdays.
Reddit users have called for a boycott of Prime Day sales from Amazon (AMZN) because the company allegedly forces workers to “be stuck at work from 5 am until 6 pm away from our families.”
The message continues, “Don’t purchase during prime week.”
One of the biggest annual sales occasions for the online retailer is Amazon Prime Day, which is ongoing through Wednesday. Company staff members complained on social media that the well-attended sale makes them work extra hours during the occasion in order to fulfill orders.
Watchdog groups have also sided with workers, claiming that Amazon’s work policies subject staff to “unreasonable workloads” as a result of their extended shifts.
The issue of dangerous working conditions at Amazon, according to employees, is made worse by Prime Day sales. Amazon’s ALB1 warehouse in Schodack, New York, started a petition on Change.org to raise awareness of the “epic prime day injuries” that happen during the sales event.
According to the petition, workers must retrieve items from collapsing bins, dig through dangerously overstuffed bins, and struggle to meet back-breaking quotas while doing so. Heavy boxes falling on them can also cause sprains and concussions.
“Prime Day makes the situation worse because the company’s already subpar on-site care is overburdened, forcing injured workers to report to work. The injury rate at Amazon is eighty percent higher than the injury rate at comparable businesses. There’s a reason for Amazon’s high employee turnover rate of 150 percent annually, it added.
Customers were urged to sign a petition demanding that Amazon recognize the Amazon Labor Union, establish safer working conditions, respect worker health, and stop its rife union-busting, according to the note.
Amazon has previously come under fire for allegedly attempting to prevent its employees from joining unions, a trend that has been growing among retail workers.
The petition had received over 1,100 signatures as of early Wednesday morning.
Shares of Amazon were trading at $109.75 as of Wednesday morning premarket hours, up 53 cents or 0.49 percent.
