Amazon is slammed for promoting ex-prison exec to run notorious fulfilment center warehouse training

Amazon has come under fire for promoting an ex-prison warden to run its infamous warehouse training at its fulfillment center — which has faced a slew of misconduct allegations in recent years.

Dayna Howard, a former manager at Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison and detention center, is now responsible for training warehouse workers at Jeff Bezos’ company.

Many have pointed to the irony — as Amazon has previously admitted to forcing its fleet drivers to pee bottles during their shifts, allegedly dealing with other poor working conditions.

Dozens of employees have also come out and described the ruthless work practices in fulfillment centers where people have no breaks and are short of pay.

Howard, based in Seattle, was promoted from her position as Amazon’s Director of Security and Loss Prevention – after more than a decade with the company.

But before that, she worked for the private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America, which has since been renamed CoreCivic, first reported by writer Matt Stoller.

Howard previously boasted on her social media that she was good at designing prison systems in prisons – as she now embarks on her new role at Amazon, where people have compared the work to allegedly being incarcerated.

The former prison warden said: ‘Developed a reception and discharge training program. Facilitate a pre-service and in-service training program for all employees; renewed the admission process of detainees and revised all processing documentation.’

Amazon has been criticized for their new acquisition and what this means for the morale of its already disgruntled warehouse workers.

One person was shocked by the news: ‘She went from the minor league to the pros!’

And another added: ‘Yeah, I don’t know about you, but I think this is going to go really well, what could go wrong!’

Referring to the extensive allegations against Amazon for their treatment of warehouse workers, a third said, “Understandable, considering the two have so much in common!”

An outraged person punched billionaire founder Jeff Bezos directly for the new acquisition: ‘Amazon, Jeff Bezoz, are you crazy? The message you just sent to your employees is stupid and for those who use Amazon well, it might be time for a change.”

Others argued that Amazon’s warehouses are indeed prisons – and joked that under Howard’s leadership, you only get “garden time if you meet your quota.”

However, some frankly said they weren’t shocked, based on the many allegations previously leveled against the company: “Not shocking at all. Amazon warehouses, like factories and much more, are designed and run like prisons.”

Amazon did not immediately respond for comment.

In April 2022, workers at an Amazon facility in New York City voted to unionize, making it the first US branch of the online retailer to organize.

According to a National Labor Relations Board count, employees at the fulfillment center known as JFK8 voted 2,654 to 2,131 in support of the Amazon Labor Union.

At the time, the center was now poised to become the first and only Amazon warehouse of 110 unionized states in the states.

In June, a leaked document also revealed that the giant company would run out of warehouse workers by 2024 as they continue to burn out their workforce.

In recent years, employees in Amazon warehouses have reported grueling shifts, long workdays, and poor wellbeing.

The document, first reported by Recode, contains the damning line: “If we continue as usual, Amazon will exhaust the available labor supply in the US network by 2024.”

It was published internally in 2021. According to Recode, an Amazon spokesperson has not refuted its authenticity.

The areas where workers are expected to be most scarce include the Inland Empire, California, an hour and a half east of Los Angeles. The region is about two hours away from 20 million potential Amazon customers.

According to Amazon’s own data, the company had a 123 percent turnover last year.

That means that over the course of the year, the number of employees who left the company equaled the total number who worked there at the beginning of the year – with an additional 23 percent on top.

The company has approximately 1.3 million employees nationwide, and since its inception in 1994, Amazon has successfully rejected labor organizers.

In December 2021, six Amazon employees were killed in Edwardsville, Illinois, when a tornado struck the facility.

Workers who survived the tornado later filed a lawsuit against the construction company that built the facility. In it, claimants said that there was no good shelter inside, KMOV reported in May 2022.

After the tornado, Amazon denied claims by employees at the Edwardsville center that the company banned them from using their cell phones at work, Business Insider reports.

According to the campaign group More Perfect Union, two workers died within 24 hours of each other at the company’s Bessemer, Alabama plant.

The group said one of the deceased men’s request to go home was rejected by HR. Hours later, he suffered a fatal stroke at work.

The group claims that a total of six people died at the Bessemer facility by 2021 and that Amazon has covered up the deaths.

Amazon denies these allegations.