Amazon workers at new Garner warehouse say the facility is too hot, even in winter
On Sunday, Jan. 15, two Amazon warehouse workers in Garner were taken to area hospitals after feeling faint on the job. One was transported to a nearby WakeMed in an ambulance; the other had a family member drive her.
While neither employee received an explicit heat-related diagnosis — one was diagnosed with general fainting and the other with anxiety and abnormal heart activity — both workers attributed their fainting in part to how hot it felt during their shifts packing products at Amazon’s RDU1 fulfillment center, about six miles southeast of downtown Raleigh.
“I don’t know why it was so hot, but I know it was hot,” said one of the hospitalized workers, who requested her name not be published due to employment concerns. “It’s always hot in there.”
Since that Sunday, The News & Observer has spoken to six more RDU1 employees who also said the temperature within the warehouse has become an issue for many workers, even during a winter month when the high temperature in Garner never topped 73 degrees.
“Recently, the heat in the warehouse has been like super bad,” an employee who was not hospitalized said. “Even with the fans at the station, for me, it doesn’t help at all.”
In an email to the N&O, Amazon spokesperson Sam Stephenson refuted that “excessive heat” was an issue at the Garner facility, saying on Jan. 19 that “any indications of excessive heat at our Garner, NC site this past weekend are factually untrue and misleading.”
Stephenson said that, during the weekend of Jan. 15, the temperature at the Garner facility was between 70 and 73 degrees Fahrenheit. He noted RDU1 has “HVAC systems designed to keep employees comfortable and safe all year round.”
But Amazon is now taking additional steps to cool down RDU1. In an internal newsletter to Garner employees published on Jan. 24 and reviewed by the N&O, Amazon said a vendor will install close to 80 “large commercial grade fans” throughout the warehouse before the summer.
“It shows that they know they have a problem with the heat,” said Rev. Ryan Brown, an RDU1 worker and cofounder of the group Carolina Amazonians United for Solidarity and Empowerment (C.A.U.S.E.), which is attempting to unionize the Garner fulfillment center.
Opened in August 2020, RDU1 covers more than 2 million square feet and contains several departments across its four floors. Its employees, which number between 4,000 and 5,000, work shifts running through day and night, seven days a week.
In the approximately 900 days since the RDU1 opened, ambulances have completed 221 transports from the facility, according to data provided by Wake County. This figure does not include 69 additional incident calls that did not result in ambulance transports. The most common reason for ambulance transports from the center have been “unconscious/fainting” with 37 completed ambulance trips from 49 reported “unconscious/fainting” incidents overall.
When asked for comment, Stephenson said, “This data is unsubstantiated, lacks context, and is highly misleading to include without background for any individual visit.”
Employees at Amazon warehouses in other states have previously complained about high temperatures at their facilities, and on Jan. 17, federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited an Amazon warehouse in Florida for exposing employees to conditions “which have been associated with the development of heat-related illnesses in workers.”
This story was produced with financial support from a coalition of partners led by Innovate Raleigh as part of an independent journalism fellowship program. The N&O maintains full editorial control of the work.
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