MERIDIAN, Idaho — The major online retailer has expanded operations once again, in Meridian. This location will increase the amount of deliveries the company can do across Idaho.
- The delivery center off Ten Mile Rd has hundreds of employees and they are still training more.
- The facility began training and operations back in September but held its public grand opening on Tuesday.
- With Amazon making headlines across the US, for poor working conditions, we reached out to Teamsters Labor Union in Boise.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
With growing demands across the Treasure Valley and beyond, Amazon has built another delivery facility located near Ten Mile Rd in Meridian.
"And we are actually going to be expanding our area radius as well, so we're going to be delivering from Meridian all the way to Fruitland Idaho," said Jacob Abundis, Senior Station Manager for Meridian's Amazon Facility.
Since the 140,000-square-foot facility was completed months ago, Amazon managers say they've created and filled more than 200 local jobs.
"We want to make sure that we're providing, the team that came into the facility, and got started in September, as well as the associates, to go through all the proper training, make sure they've gone through all the right safety and training mechanisms before we actually do a grand opening," said Abundis.
That's on top of another 400 plus independent delivery drivers. "Those are folks like you and I that just want to have a secondary job and pick up some Amazon packages to go out and deliver, that would be our Flex Dispatch," said Abundis.
A Tuesday morning grand opening invited Meridian public officials to learn more about their efforts to get involved in the community.
Amazon has made headlines in the past, with concerns around employee working conditions, so I reached out to the Teamsters Labor Union in Boise...
Their team shared concerns surrounding the physical, and sometimes dangerous demands of fulfillment center jobs, a recent OSHA citation filed for those same reasons at the company's Nampa facility.
I asked Sam Bailey, the Manager of Economic Development Policy for his response to employees claiming poor working conditions. He said "at Amazon, we have a direct relationship with our associates, we feel that's most beneficial. It allows us to deploy our benefits starting day 1 [of employment]."
