Some employees at Amazon’s largest Air Hub facility are saying one workplace issue is starting to really bug employees.
On May 29, Memorial Day, employees representing the union effort at KCVG, Amazon’s largest Air Hub, which is located in Hebron, Kentucky, made an Instagram post claiming there was an outbreak of bed bugs at the Amazon facility.
“Bedbug outbreak at KCVG in ramp crew van 463,” reads the Instagram post’s caption. “Crew is in the HR office refusing to be sent home without full shift pay including holiday time & 1/2. This has been an issue at KCVG for a year. Management has refused to take decisive action.”
Marcio Rodriguez, a ramp worker at KCVG, told CityBeat that he started his shift as normal on Memorial Day, performing “asset checks” on the vans workers use to drive between buildings when he was told a possible bed bug was discovered in a van he had just checked.
“We were hearing some talking about how they had found a bed beg in one of the vans,” Rodriguez said. “They weren’t really saying which van it is. I finally figured out which van it was and I went up to management and I tell them, 'Hey, I was in that van this morning.’”
Rodriguez said all the employees who had come in contact with the van were pulled into an HR office and given two options.
“We could go home without pay or and the absence would be excused,” he said. “The other option was that we could go into one of the private bathrooms that Amazon has and check ourselves and then go back to work.”
Of the roughly eight impacted employees, Rodriguez said no one liked the options presented, especially because employees would be missing out on Memorial Day bonus pay if they were to go home.
“Plus, I didn’t want to put my coworkers in danger as far as spreading that stuff,” Rodriguez said.
After going back and forth with management, Rodriguez said employees were ultimately allowed to go home with pay, including their scheduled holiday rate. The organizing body of employees looking to unionize KCVG called the result a victory in an Instagram post, but said that employee safety around bed bugs continues to be a problem at the facility.
“UNION VICTORY: AMAZON WORKERS TAKE ACTION and are sent home with FULL PAY including Memorial Day time and 1/2 after discovering another BED BUG OUTBREAK AT AMAZON KCVG,” the post reads. “Amazon has refused to address recent outbreaks of bed bugs in our ramp crew vans at Amazons Air Hub KCVG in Northern Kentucky. In the last year there have been many cases of bed bug outbreaks with workers often sent home unpaid.”
Rodriguez estimated a bed bug problem pops up among KCVG’s frequently used vans about every six weeks, but Amazon disputes this, saying that there are no issues with insects at KCVG and that vans are treated regularly by a third party pest control company.
“The facilities and vehicles at the KCVG Air Hub are regularly inspected by pest control professionals as part of our standard health and safety protocols, and claims to the contrary are incorrect,” Amazon spokesperson Mary Kate Paradis told CityBeat. “In this instance, an employee told us about a potential issue and we immediately took the van out of service and had it treated. Experts have since confirmed the insect in question was not a bed bug."
The organizing employees at KCVG have not formally outlined safety as a key concern in their union drive, but messaging about bed bugs started in April when a similar Instagram post claimed bed bugs were found in a facility van. At that time, an Amazon spokesperson Steve Kelly told CityBeat that “experts confirmed there were no actual signs of bed bugs or any other insects."
Rodriguez said the ongoing union campaign – which is seeking $30 per hour, 180 hours of PTO and representation at disciplinary hearings – is concerned about having a voice for workers’ safety.
“The union would try and address these problems to take care of our safety,” he said.
Amazon has told CityBeat in the past that employees have the right to unionize, but that the company does not believe it’s the best option for the nearly 4,000 employees at Amazon’s largest-ever Air Hub.
“Our employees have the choice of whether or not to join a union. They always have. As a company, we don’t think unions are the best answer for our employees,” Paradis previously told CityBeat. “Our focus remains on working directly with our team to continue making Amazon a great place to work.”
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