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Amazon Axes Paid Covid Leave as it Returns to “Pre-Pandemic Policies”

by Will Jones
2 May 2022 4:58 PM

Amazon has taken another step back to normality as it axes its paid time-off policy for employees with Covid, an announcement that coincides with the company recording a first quarter loss. MailOnline has the story.

Staff in the U.S. will now get five days of excused, unpaid leave if they can provide proof of a positive test result. They will also cease informing staff if someone at their warehouse has tested positive.

The changes have prompted outrage with some online who have accused the world’s second richest man Jeff Bezos of placing profits over people. 

The company benefited hugely from the pandemic online shopping boom before shares dived on Friday following a devastating quarter in which the company recorded its first net loss since 2015, a $3.8billion hit due in part to its investment in Rivian Automotive. …

After a long-running surge in sales during the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, Amazon’s outlook has dimmed as life returns to normal. 

The policy change follows the availability of vaccines and revised guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“We can continue to safely adjust to our pre-Covid policies,” the company said, citing the sustained easing of the pandemic, the availability of vaccines and treatments, and updated public health guidance. …

On Saturday, Amazon said it is halting site-wide notifications of positive cases in facilities, unless required by law, as well as efforts to encourage vaccination.

In January, Amazon trimmed paid leave for workers with the virus to one week, or up to 40 hours. Before that, they got two weeks of paid time off for Covid.

Somehow I suspect the public sector will not be so quick as the private sector to roll back its Covid-era benefits.

Worth reading in full.

Tags: AmazonJeff BezosLiving with Covid

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51 Comments
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huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago

Nice to see Amazon recording a loss at least.

29
0
David Beaton
David Beaton
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Indeed and a personal loss for the little space traveller .

10
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

Wish ill on another. How very Christian of you.

5
-7
huxleypiggles
huxleypiggles
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Are you pissed again?

3
-1
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

I don’t drink alcohol, idiot.

I don’t do recreational drugs either.

What’s your excuse?

3
-4
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  huxleypiggles

He’s a Scotch: judgemental and belligerent is his natural state.

1
0
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

It’s not very Christian to wish ill on all the Amazon workers forced to wear nappies to shit in so they don’t ‘reduce productivity on shift’ is it??

3
0
Mike Durrans
Mike Durrans
3 years ago

I do not use Amazon since they refused my card and tried to tell me what bank to use ( b’ stards) but in this situation they are right, too many people are playing up the flue situation

18
0
Paul B
Paul B
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Durrans

..since March 2020

8
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Mike Durrans

They “told” you what bank to use?

How does that work?

0
-2
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

They said they were going to refuse to accept VISA cards and demanded people supply details of debit cards or other credit cards.

A few days before the deadline, they claimed they’d reached an acceptable arrangement with VISA and withdrew their threat..

2
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

So, they didn’t tell anyone what Bank they could use.

Not that Visa is a Bank of course.

3
-3
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
3 years ago

I read that migrants crossing the Mexican border are being shipped to towns with huge Amazon depots. Quite a tidy racket. Ship them in, heaven knows the terms and conditions of their employment, and the big fat consumer on the doorstep is as happy as the proverbial pig at least for a short while.

13
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

Grow up. The world would be worse off without Amazon. Bezos introduced the concept of online deliveries and the world went mad for it, quite rightly.

You can get almost anything you want, from almost anywhere on earth thanks to him, and the world of online shopping was born.

Those squealing “I’ll never buy from the evil Amazon again” will just go to an Amazon inspired, retail online sites, empowered by Bezos’ vision. Probably running on his serves.

Tomorrow it could be you or me that turns an online bookstore into the biggest retail organisation in the world.

OK, the guy might be a wanker, but then so are all our politicians and they haven’t done a fraction of what he’s achieved.

9
-8
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

LOL. Downtickers.

Amazon Derangement Syndrome.

Funny, because they all use Amazon. LOL

4
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Annie
Annie
3 years ago

Money for jam, eh?

Actually I’m grateful to Amazon for supplying goods promptly, efficiently and without fuss while all local traders were hiding down their rabbit holes, only emerging in order to bleat about face nappies.

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RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Thank you Annie. A reasoned response.

Bog rolls galore from Amazon when Sainsbury’s and Tescos couldn’t get their shit together to provide for their communities.

6
-1
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

I have bought online from Waitrose for 2 years since March 2020 and not once, not once, were ‘bog rolls’ not able to be supplied. Not one. I never, ever experienced a ‘stock out’.

There have been ‘stock outs’ of a few products, but alternatives are always available. You roll with the punches….

2
0
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  Annie

Having used non-Amazon online stories and delivery channels, I can confidently tell you that Amazon ‘delivery tracking services’ are infinitely inferior to far smaller, less powerful competitors.

All this ‘Amazon is the god of the universe’ is just claptrap. They are a very powerful, early mover in the space and other competitors are now outperforming them in terms of customer service.

And they don’t say ‘have a 30 day free trial of Amazon Prime’, then two days later say they are ‘taking your 12 month subscription within 24hrs’, thereby being a bullying contract breaker who did NOT get that subscription when I told every MP in Westminster to see Amazon as organised crime, not a service to humanity.

4
0
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
3 years ago

Can you really operate within human society in a purely predatory manner? The fact that a few people might think so is less troubling than the blindness regarding such practices and seems like wilful ignorance. Weak pleasure seeking people who could never countenance a truth that might make them feel bad. Perhaps the time of frugality that we are moving into will have a purgative effect in this regard. But if you have no reading or religion or culture to fall back on. what happens when the religion of consumerism disappears?

3
0
David Beaton
David Beaton
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

Amazon doesn’t do “society”.

5
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Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

They might say that they don’t but their emplyees were nurtured in society. Any skills they have were developed in society. Such a model is death bound. They will not survive the horror to come regardless of how rich they are.

2
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

They’re doomed, I tell you, doomed.

FFS, grow up.

Describe how Amazon will fail, without the fanciful wittering.

3
-5
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Hey downvoters, I asked a question you dipsticks.

Accuse others of tyranny then engage in it yourself.

Hilarious.

0
-2
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Of course it does. Amazon invented cheap goods to your door.

2
-2
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

No it DID NOT. If you compare Amazon online prices to other sources, much of the time the products are MORE expensive online than via retail stores. I’ve found zero evidence for prices being cheaper buying through Amazon. If you want cheap online products, try alternatives.

These cheap buzzwords don’t match hard retail reality.

0
-1
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Yes they do, but you have to earn $75,000 a year to be part of it.

0
0
Marcus Aurelius knew
Marcus Aurelius knew
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

A charlatan stands up and the herd follows. Elon Musk.

PS I have no problem with his buying Twitter, he can do what he likes.

Last edited 3 years ago by Marcus Aurelius knew
4
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

Can you really operate within human society in a purely predatory manner?

Predatory?

Bezos brought online shopping to the whole world. Are you mad? He was nearly bankrupt on several occasions doing it.

You can buy a carpet from Indian peasants on Amazon in 5 minutes, when it would have taken you 5 months of effort to find and buy one by conventional means, at twice the price. And deliver would have cost you as much as te carpet.

If Amazon is so bad, then use it to make your life more profitable. Who knows, you might start an online bookstore that beats Amazon.

2
-1
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Bezos is predatory because he seeks to wipe out all competition through predatory pricing, then when he has wiped out the opposition, the prices go back up to what they were before his predatory pricing games.

He didn’t invent that, UK supermarkets did that in the 1980s to gain market dominance. Then they put all the prices back up again and again until I could buy food for half the price on covered markets without all the pointless plastic.

3
0
David Beaton
David Beaton
3 years ago

Amazon crudely saving money as sales and shares fall – wait until ye global supply chains collapse – hopefully taking Bezos’ sick dream of being a Spaceman looking down on the enslaved plebs on Earth with them

7
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

That’s just wanky. Best you hope global supply chains don’t’ collapse.

And I’m prepared to bet Bezos will be instrumental in ensuring they don’t.

3
-1
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

People like Bezos are instrumental in causing the collapse to happen in the first place. He and Gates and their billionaire mates, who made trillions in increased wealth the past two years.

You think Gates didn’t plan the pandemic with others, then try and impose his totalitarian solutions, none of which actually work??

The vaccine scam was the biggest heist in history. But Pfizer’s reputation is now dead. The biggest financial players have marked Pfizer down long-term because they know that their reputation is dead in the water.

4
-1
Rogerborg
Rogerborg
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Will hope have any effect on that?

Have a look at marine trackers for shipping parked up outside Shanghai. Best “responsibly stockpile” before the panic buying starts.

1
0
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  David Beaton

Bezos will have more than sufficient wealth to be fine even if Amazon went bankrupt. I get six investment advisories a week telling me to invest in ‘Bezos-backed businesses’. He’s like Bill Gates: made his money as a monopolist and now wants to make just as much as an investor.

2
0
tom171uk
tom171uk
3 years ago

This will p*ss off the lefties.

5
-1
Jabby Mcstiff
Jabby Mcstiff
3 years ago

They buy up smaller more wholesome operators and then become the only source of a product, degrading the quality and increasing the price. Many other pernicious mechanisms. If this happened in the human body you would call it cancer. We are moving into a time of greater light. Amazon might seem invincible now but it will be the first on the chopping block.

8
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Jabby Mcstiff

Bollox. What a lot of shite.

Last edited 3 years ago by RedhotScot
2
-6
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago

The law of supply and demand prevails, as usual.

3
-5
J4mes
J4mes
3 years ago

Amazon? Oh yes, the company I have not spared a penny towards in the last 10 yrs or so, and will vehemently discourage others from using as a shop for the foreseeable future.

Last edited 3 years ago by J4mes
5
-1
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  J4mes

Why?

1
0
J4mes
J4mes
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

Do I ask why you why you so regularly shop at Ann Summers on your own?

4
-1
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  J4mes

Stupid comment. As stupid as your first comment.

I asked you a perfectly legitimate and polite question and am met with abuse.

What’s your problem?

1
-1
Nearhorburian
Nearhorburian
3 years ago
Reply to  J4mes

But if I need something tomorrow they’ll probably be able to supply it and I won’t have to drive for 30 minutes, sweat in overheated shops and engage with cretinous shop assistants.

3
0
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

100%

1
0
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  Nearhorburian

Well, if you were more organised and bought before you were down to your last biscuit etc, you wouldn’t need something tomorrow.

The vast majority of non-emergency purchases don’t need next-day delivery, it’s far more important that the product is high quality and lasts for years, rather than arrives tomorrow and goes in the bin within 12 months.

I do a lot of online purchasing and less than 5% of it is through Amazon.

2
-1
RedhotScot
RedhotScot
3 years ago

Got to love the ignorant Bezos haters on this site. I don’t like that he’s woke, but I respect his success.

The critical thinkers on this blog, the supposed analysts of covid, and climate change, most of whom know nothing about the subjects, but don’t like the financial consequences staring themselves in the face.

Which is sensible. Climate Change initiatives will make you broke. That’s an entirely sensible position because it’s happening.

It was more intuitive than scientific, but its manifesting itself. Funny that a ‘scientific’ hypothesis begins with an intuitive guess. So more scientists on this website than probably anywhere else.

And right wingers, mostly populating this site, those devoted to individual liberty and the laws of supply and demand. Those embalmed in the concept of success achieved through hard work rather than by sponging off the state.

But “Bezos bad”. And yet Bezos is the embodiment of success by hard work and personal endeavour.

The guy started a book selling site, and told his investors there was a 70% chance it wouldn’t succeed. I read his investment proposal at the time, I had a few bob (not mega bob), and stupidly I believed what he said, so I didn’t invest! What a moron!

So Bezos spent much of a lifetime building a business that attracted global approval in the truest sense of the word, improved innumerable lives, made an unquantifiable number of ordinary people people wealthy, but he’s a bad guy.

I don’t like his politics or his woke virtue signalling, but none of us are perfect and we all make mistakes.

Why would anyone, in their right mind, celebrate the hard times of a business like this? If people don’t like working for Amazon, if they don’t like the conditions, they are free to seek employment elsewhere.

2
0
rtj1211
rtj1211
3 years ago
Reply to  RedhotScot

You really are an ignorant f***wit. Climate Change has ALWAYS happened and it’s got bog all to do with human beings. There have been at least three ‘warm periods’ the past 500 years warmer than today and none of them were caused by humans. The Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Climatic Optimum were the last two. Oh, and then there were the cold periods, like the Little Ice Age and the Dark Ages, neither of which were caused by humans.

The warming the past 200 years is entirely beneficial and if you knew how to grow food you’d agree. Frosts in June is not a good look out for feeding yourself, you know.

Hurricanes have always existed and always will. There’s no more of them around now than before. If you claim otherwise, you are simply a liar.

If you say that droughts never existed before, you are simply a liar.

If you say that the greatest floods in history occurred the past 30 years, you are simply a liar.

If you say that arctic sea ice was always enormous, you are simply a liar.

If you say that record heat occurs now, not in the 1930s, you are a liar.

1
-2
iane
iane
3 years ago
Reply to  rtj1211

He did say that ‘climate change initiatives will make you broke’ – and YES that really is happening!

1
0
albert hall
albert hall
3 years ago

A return to normality, that would mean I guess reworking their tv ad showing muzzled up workers out in the open air.

3
0
marebobowl
marebobowl
3 years ago

Just cancelled my Amazon prime. Stop supporting companies and people like Bezos, please. Netflix gone months ago, ikea, Tesco same. Do not support companies that do not support you or their employees. It really is that simple.

2
0

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