An Amazon worker is going viral on TikTok after sharing how they and their fellow employees staged a walk-out amidst the recent time change.
User @ki2xs._, who lives in Tampa, Florida, said that they and other night shift workers were expected to work extra after clocks fell back an hour on Sunday to mark the end of daylight saving time. As a result, they said everyone left an hour early.
“POV: you work @ Amazon during the time change & they wont pay us an extra hr so we all left an hr early,” @ki2xs._ wrote in the accompanying text overlay. As of Monday, their video had accumulated more than four million views.
How does daylight saving affect night time workers?
In a follow-up video, @ki2xs._ recorded themselves talking with a superior. The manager—who appeared off camera—appeared to confirm that some Amazon night shift workers didn’t get an extra hours pay.
“So for the ones who worked yesterday, if they worked the whole shift are they getting paid 11 hours or just ten?” @ki2xs._ asked them.
“Ten hours,” the person replied before the video, which has more than 62,300 views, abruptly ended.
It’s not clear that these rules apply to all of Amazon’s night workers, however. In a Reddit thread from 2020, another Amazon worker asked what would happen when the clocks changed. Though the redditor admitted that they were bracing to work an additional hour with no pay, commenters said that wouldn’t be the case.
“Let’s say you work 6:30pm – 5:00am, you will clock out at 4:00am,” one viewer wrote. “Clocks roll back at 2.”
“We just got a text about it for my FC,” another added. “You work your regular shift including the extra hour and are of course paid for it.”
So it could be the case that shifts vary based on Amazon warehouses. Indeed, another Amazon worker commented on @ki2xs._’s video saying, at their store, workers were allowed to leave an hour early. And in the accompanying video caption to their follow-up TikTok, @ki2xs._ was adamant that they weren’t lying “for likes.”
“Would yall like the sign in the bathroom & all over the building too that states the exact same thing?” they asked.
Why do the clocks change for daylight saving?
This year, daylight saving began on March 10 and ended on Nov. 3. But unlike in the springtime, when we lose an extra hour and the clock skips to 2am, we gained an extra hour on Sunday. Night owls might’ve taken notice of this, as clocks jumped from 1:59am back to 1am.
One effect of this is that the sun will start setting earlier across the U.S. and temperatures will start to cool.
Daylight saving time was established in 1918 in an effort to extend the daylight hours we have in the summertime. But it was a contested idea when it first passed—and continues to draw ire from Americans now. And while there have indeed been efforts to end daylight saving time, they’ve stalled in Congress. In 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would’ve kept daylight saving time year-round and eliminated standard time from November to March. The plan didn’t have enough support to pass the U.S. House, however, and there’s been no major movement on a similar bill since.
Viewers react to Amazon worker’s walkout
In the comments of @ki2xs._’s video, many viewers expressed skepticism that Amazon’s night shift workers wouldn’t get rewarded for an extra hour of labor.
“It makes no sense,” one viewer wrote. “You get paid BY THE HOUR and there’s literally an extra hour.”
“You all get [the] hour,” another one added.
“Youre still paid for the hours you work regardless of a time change,” a third person commented. “How is that not obvious.”
Others, however, said that they wouldn’t be surprised if Amazon was skimping workers’ pay.
“Till this day I still get settlement checks from Amazon when I worked there 10 years ago,” one man said. “They violate so much stuff.”
“No job ever pays you through the time change,” another agreed.
But mostly, people agreed that if workers weren’t getting paid for the extent of their full shift, then a walk-out was justified.
@ki2xs._ GET SOMEBODY ELSE TO DO IT!!! 😭 #fypシ #amazon #warehouseworker ♬ BIRDS OF A FEATHER – Billie Eilish
“Ion blame you cuz nah,” one commenter said.
“THIS, cause I was out of there with a quickness,” another quipped.
“America is wild,” a third viewer wrote.
The Daily Dot has reached out to @ki2xs._ via TikTok comment and to Amazon by email.
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