Heat, Flooding, and Fire at Tennessee Amazon Warehouse

Amazon Worker Correspondent

Workers met high production goals at the Amazon Fulfillment Center MQY1, in Mount Juliet, TN, during Prime Week at the end of June, weathering 80° – 81° temperatures. One worker in the Stow department told The Worker, “I hate Prime Day. They have fake deals for the consumers. We’re doing all this work and they get fake deals. It’s hot inside.”

Earlier that month, Amazon workers sheltered in place at MQY1 after the warehouse lost power and a rainwater pipe burst, flooding from the fifth to the first floor on June 9-10, shutting down entire segments of the center.

Production shut down for the last hour of day shift on June 9 as water covered the floors.

By the time night shift started, workers reported that they were forced to shelter in place for hours in the fourth-floor break room while the company tried to contain the water. Across different departments, robots, machines, and tools stopped working. In one department, water poured into an electrical transformer and power outlets.

Departments like Ship Dock and the Mezzanine floor were either completely or partially shut down, creating bottlenecks and back-ups for the entire production line and every department.

Amazon’s robots and software system had massive malfunctions, and a lot of packages and items were sent to the wrong places. One worker reported to The Worker that the number of faulty robots that they were having to deal with felt “endless.”

The main production line broke down several times throughout the day. Workers were unsure if the main line broke because of the flooding or if the main line broke for the same reason it almost always breaks: an increase in speed to make up for lost time.

One worker commented, “It felt like the rough time of the day for the entire day; I wouldn’t doubt we [are] getting all this work because of the flood.”

Many workers around the site were upset that they had to show up the next day to work in dangerous conditions caused by half the building malfunctioning.

One Pack worker shared his concern about workplace safety, “I couldn’t believe the pipe could fail like that and for it to get that bad. It was really strange.”

A Ship Dock associate said, “Amazon will do anything to keep this place running, even if it is by a thread.”

The fire system was also broken the day of the flood, requiring workers to search the building themselves and get people out. In fact, the fire alarm system had been broken for months before this flood.

Back in March, a fire broke out and the alarm didn’t go off until workers were already halfway done evacuating. At that time, Amazon downplayed the fire—and then never fixed the broken alarm.

We are looking for worker correspondents: cashiers, drivers, nurses, construction workers, cleaners, warehouse staff—anyone who wants to report on what’s really happening at work. Share a story, a tip, a victory, or a fightback. We’ll help you turn it into an article. Contact us at theworkerpaper@proton.me.

Image: An Amazon fulfillment center in Troutdale, OR. Credit: Tedder on Wikimedia Commons.

---

The Worker is an entirely volunteer-run revolutionary newspaper free from and radically antagonistic to corporate influence. We rely on the support of our readers to sustain our editorial line in service of the working class and the reconstitution of its party, the Communist Party. Make a one-time or recurring donation to our newspaper today: