Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) for long has hyped the thousands of jobs it created. However, these jobs are coming at a cost or communities where the company establishes its fulfillment centers.
Amazon denies allegations that its fulfillment centers are unsafe
According to research and the recent launch of Athena, there are growing concerns about the impact of the company on communities around its warehouses. Athena is a coalition established to put an end to the growing influence of the e-commerce giant on society as well as the economy. The coalition launched on Tuesday amid revelations that the rate of injuries at the company’s Staten Island, New York fulfillment centers, was almost triple the industry average.
The company has, however, denied the allegations with a spokesperson, indicating that the accusations are inaccurate. The spokesperson stated that it was not true that their warehouses are unsafe. Therefore, any attempt to identify the centers as such based on the number of injury recordings was misleading. This is because Amazon’s workforce is quite huge.
However, the spokesperson attributed the high number of injuries to the under-recording of safety instances in the industry.
Communities around fulfillment centers not benefiting enough
Similarly, groups claiming that the jobs the company offers when it builds the fulfillment centers commensurate to the benefits the community receives. The Economic Policy Institute and the Economic Roundtable are the groups that have voiced concerns. Economic Roundtable is a coalition of unions that represent over 800,000 workers.
In a report by Economic Roundtable underwritten by the Federation of Labour Federation of Los Angeles, the group indicates that amazon’s activities are causing much damage. Authors of the report Patrick Burns and Daniel Flaming stated that the company’s trucks are causing significant damage to roads around the fulfillment centers that are uncompensated. Equally, they indicate that workers receive meager pay making it difficult to afford decent housing.
In 2018 an EPI report indicated that in counties where Amazon opens its fulfillment centers, there are no new net jobs created overall. This is because there is a counterbalance between jobs created and job losses in other sectors.
