Amazon is reinstating a pre-pandemic coverage bringing again metallic detector screenings for its 750,000 U.S.-based hourly warehouse workers, per a brand new Bloomberg report. The retail big will even require employees to register their telephones so safety personnel know they have not stolen the units.
Amazon reportedly started telling employees in choose check areas concerning the telephone registration and metallic detector screenings on Monday. The corporate is planning to progressively roll out the anti-theft measures, beginning first with check warehouses after which increasing to all of its U.S. amenities, per Bloomberg.
Below the brand new coverage, workers must stroll by means of a metallic detector to go away Amazon warehouses to make sure that they have not taken something with them. Cellphone registration entails sharing the final six digits of the telephone’s serial quantity in alternate for an figuring out sticker.
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“We’re at all times working to make our amenities extra protected and safe for our workers and for all corporations of all sizes that put their belief in us to retailer their stock,” an Amazon spokesperson instructed Bloomberg in an emailed assertion.
Metallic detector screenings aren’t new at Amazon warehouses — they have been the norm earlier than the pandemic. However they have been controversial, and employees filed lawsuits over the screenings in 2014, in search of greater than $100 million in again wages for time spent in line ready to be screened. They alleged that they stood in line for as much as 25 minutes at a time to conform.
Inside an Amazon success heart in Robbinsville, New Jersey. Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg through Getty Photos
That very same 12 months, the U.S. Supreme Court docket had the ultimate say on the matter and dominated that employees weren’t entitled to again pay for time misplaced after a shift to metallic detector screenings.
Amazon additionally stopped workers from accessing their telephones earlier than the pandemic, mandating that they depart private units in vehicles or lockers. The retail big relaxed this coverage throughout the pandemic as employees sought to be related to real-time medical info, per Bloomberg.
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In accordance with Enterprise Insider, Amazon operates 110 warehouses within the U.S. with some as massive as one million sq. ft.
Statista estimates that Amazon is the second-largest firm on the planet after Walmart, with 1.5 million world workers as of 2023.
