NEW YORK (1010 WINS) – Amazon announced Thursday new steps it was taking to keep its employees safe from the coronavirus, including temperature checks and masks, as well as health and safety audits.
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In a blog post Thursday, Dave Clark, senior vice president of worldwide operations at Amazon, laid out the steps that are currently underway.
The new measures come amid growing concerns from workers, union leaders and customers about the spread of the virus, as well as after protests from some employees at Amazon and Whole Foods locations, including at a Staten Island warehouse this week.
Clark said that on Sunday the company began temperature checks at sites around the U.S. and is now taking the temperature of 100,000 employees each day. Anyone who registers a temperature over 100.4 degrees is being asked to return home and not come back to work until they've gone three days without a fever.
Clark said the full rollout of the temperature checks across the U.S. and Europe is expected by early next week, when the company anticipates it will be testing hundreds of thousands of workers every day.
Clark said the company is continuing to give wipes and hand sanitizer to workers and is now receiving millions of masks for employees that it ordered weeks ago.
The company is also conducting daily audits of its new health and safety measure, and it is using machine learning technologists to find ways to improve social distancing at its buildings.
"With over 1,000 sites around the world, and so many measures and precautions rapidly rolled out over the past several weeks, there may be instances where we don't get it perfect, but I can assure you that's just what they'll be—exceptions," Clark wrote.
Clark also said the company has already hired 80,000 of the additional 100,000 people it said it hoped to hire to meet demand. He said the company has spent more than $150 million to support workers and plans to ultimately invest well over $350 million.
He said the company is supporting workers who need to take time off and is giving extra paid time off to workers who are presumptively diagnosed with the coronavirus. The company is also giving employees who had close contact with a diagnosed person 14 days off with pay.
"I couldn't be more proud of the critical role our teams are serving by enabling people to stay safe at home while receiving the products they need," Clark wrote.
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