Amazon plans Woodside warehouse as workers protest in Staten Island
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Anti-Amazon demonstrators attended a hearing at City Hall in January before the online retail giant pulled out of a deal to create a vast tech campus in Long Island City. Eagle file photos by Todd Maisel.
By Victoria Merlino
As Amazon workers protested conditions at the company’s Staten Island distribution center on Monday, workers rights advocates turned their attention to a similar facility that the company plans to build in Woodside.
The Staten Island center has a “Recordable Incident Rate” of injuries three times higher than the industry average for warehouses, according to a new report from advocacy groups Make the Road New York and New York Communities for Change. The two groups say the data comes from the facility’s 2018 Occupational Safety and Health Administration logs.
“Pay close attention to this fight in Staten Island, neighbors,” District 13 State Sen. Jessica Ramos tweeted. “An Amazon warehouse of this size will be #SeenIn13 and these are the jobs that come with it unless we organize and win.”
An Amazon spokesperson told the Staten Island Advance that it was “inaccurate” to say that the centers are not safe.
“And efforts to paint our workplace as such based solely on the number of injury recordings is misleading given the size of our workforce. We believe so strongly in the environment that we offer for fulfillment center employees, including our safety culture, that we offer public tours where anyone can come for themselves one of our sites firsthand,” Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty told the Advance.
Construction workers demonstrated in support of the Amazon corporate campus plan in January. The online retail giant backed out of that project but plans to build a warehouse distribution center in Woodside.
Amazon signed a lease to build a $5.6 million Woodside distribution center in April, according to THE CITY. The distribution center comes after Amazon’s failed attempt to build a second headquarters in Long Island City, a move celebrated by some local lawmakers and organizers who opposed the subsidies the company would have received from New York.
“Rather than seriously engage with the community they proposed to profoundly change, Amazon continued its effort to shakedown governments to get its way,” area State Sen. Michael Gianaris said at the time. “It is time for a national dialogue about the perils of these types of corporate subsidies.”
Local groups and politicians have additionally expressed their displeasure with the Woodside facility as the project has continued.
“To allow this type of corporation to plant its flag in western Queens goes against our neighborhoods’ values, and we will make sure anyone who works in our district isn’t subjected to the long hours or harsh treatment people are allegedly subjected to elsewhere by Amazon,” Councilmember Costa Constantinides, who represents the area where the Woodside facility would be located, told THE CITY in April.
At a protest in February over the distribution center, officials from the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union and labor organization Align also expressed concerns.
On the heels of the Staten Island protest, Make the Road announced that it is partnering with other advocacy groups to form Athena, a grassroots movement to oppose Amazon and fight for better workers protections at the company.
Deborah Axt, co-executive director at Make the Road New York, said that Make the Road was concerned about how Amazon conducts business, and how it affects workers.
“We are deeply concerned that Amazon continues to expand its empire on the backs of working families and communities,” she wrote the Eagle in an emailed statement. “It is time to have an honest conversation about the extractive and abusive nature of Amazon's business model. Workers across this city, and around the globe, are speaking up about the brutality of Amazon warehouse jobs, immigrants are demanding the corporation stop enabling the Trump deportation machine, and activists are calling for an end to Amazon's reckless practices that exacerbate climate damage.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story.
