Twenty-four workers of an Amazon distribution centre in New Jersey were admitted to doctor’s facility after a automated machine inadvertently punctured a container of bear repellent.
The 255g can containing non-diluted capsaicin, a chemical combinaton in stew peppers, was broken by a computerised machine after it tumbled off a rack, as indicated by neighbourhood media.
The occurrence occurred on Wednesday at a distribution centre in Robbinsville, New Jersey, on the edges of Trenton. The workers were taken to doctor’s facility “as a safety measure”, Amazon said.
The occurrence has again shone a focus on conditions in Amazon’s distribution centres, which have been reprimanded in the US and the UK for poor working practices and an emphasis on efficiency above labourer well-being.
Stuart Appelbaum, the leader of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, stated: “Amazon’s computerised robots place people in dangerous risk.
This is another ludicrous case of the organisation putting benefits over the well-being and security of their specialists, and we can’t represent this. The most extravagant organisation on the planet can’t keep on being let free to put dedicated individuals’ lives in danger.”
In the United Kingdom, emergency services were called to Amazon distribution centres multiple times somewhere in the range of 2015-17. The organisation has denied that it had poor working conditions.
Source: The Guardian and Common Dreams
