Amazon Worker Correspondent
As Amazon launches Prime Day this year, warehouse and delivery workers are once again facing dangerous work speed-ups and mandatory overtime during one of the company’s busiest sales periods.
Amazon reported $12.7 billion in Prime Day sales in 2023. By 2025, online shoppers spent an estimated $24.1 billion during the four-day event. Behind those sales are workers expected to move more packages in less time.
Inside Amazon warehouses, “Pick” workers retrieve items from shelves while “Pack” workers prepare orders for shipment. A Pack worker at Amazon Fulfillment Center MQY1 in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, told The Worker that employees are expected to meet strict Units Per Hour (UPH) targets. “In Pick, you need to hit 350. In Pack, it’s 100. I’m not a robot,” she said.
A Pick worker at Amazon’s Tepozpark warehouse in Tepotzotlán, Mexico, described how production targets continually increase. “When you try harder, what they do is raise the minimum goal,” he told The Worker. “If you had to pack 100 packages, now the minimum is 150. If you’re below that, then you start losing pay.”
A tractor-trailer driver who has worked at Amazon centers across Sacramento, California, said management pressures drivers to maximize productivity. “My manager said, ‘You have a lot of idle time, and that’s not productive,'” he recalled to The Worker. “I responded, ‘I’m moving at the speed of safety.'”
During Prime Day, Amazon imposes Scheduled Extra Time (SET), adding mandatory overtime shifts to workers’ schedules. Many facilities also freeze paid time off requests during the peak sales period. Workers who exhaust their unpaid time off risk disciplinary action or termination.
Amazon’s harsh policies have led to workplace injuries, miscarriages, and deaths. A 2024 Senate report found that Amazon’s recorded injury rate during Prime Day 2019 was over 10 injuries per 100 workers. However, the total injury rate, which includes injuries not disclosed to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), was about 45 injuries per 100 workers
Amazon workers have repeatedly struggled against these conditions. During Prime Day in July 2019, workers at the MSP1 fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, walked off the job and later won representation on the facility’s safety committee.
Prime Day strikes continued in October 2022, when workers at warehouses in Georgia, California, and Illinois launched a two-day strike over safety concerns, mandatory overtime, and no extra pay. Workers at the DGE9 warehouse in Georgia reported that conveyor belt speeds were reduced following the action.
Prime Day pushes Amazon workers to the brink, while workers continue to struggle for better workplace safety and reduced workloads.
Image: An Amazon fulfillment center in Troutdale, OR. Credit: Tedder on Wikimedia Commons.
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