On January 25, hundreds of workers at an Amazon warehouse in Chicago were presented with a baffling choice: sign up for a ten-and-a-half-hour graveyard shift, or lose your job.

Management informed workers that their warehouse, known as DCH1, would be shut down, and they were being offered a shift that runs from 1:20am to 11:50am, which is known as “megacycle,” at a new Chicago warehouse.

DCH1 has been the target of protests, walkouts, and petitions organized by workers that have changed Amazon’s nationwide policies for its warehouses. Its closure will force workers to choose between their lives outside of Amazon and keeping their jobs in the middle of a pandemic. […]

The ultimatum presented to workers at DCH1 reflects a broader strategy in the U.S. for Amazon. The company has been quietly transitioning warehouse workers at delivery stations nationwide to the “megacycle” shift in recent months. The megacycle shift collapses shorter shifts into one 10-hour shift that begins around 1 am and ends around lunchtime. It’s unclear where the term megacycle originated but it’s used by both managers and workers to describe 10-hour graveyard shifts, workers tell Motherboard. An Amazon spokesperson told Motherboard that more than half of its last-mile delivery network has already transitioned to the new model.

Workers at DCH1 were previously offered several different shift options, including an eight-hour overnight shift that ends at 4:45 am, a five-hour morning shift, and a four-hour morning shift. Going forward, rank-and-file DCH1 workers will only have the megacycle option at a new facility, DCH1 Amazonians United told Motherboard. […]

Meanwhile, in online forums, such as the subreddit, r/AmazonDS, which covers topics related to Amazon delivery stations, warehouse workers have discussed the punishing amount of strenuous labor required of the “megacycle” shift.

“You will do all the stuff you are currently doing for like 7 hours. Then after you are done sorting, you pick and stage. That’s when you take all the bags and oversized packages and put them on carts for the drivers. IT SUCKS,” one worker recently posted on the subreddit, describing megacycle.

Currently, workers at DCH1 either sort or pick and stage, but not both. Workers have been told on the megacycle shift they’ll be asked to sort for eight hours, and then pick and stage for two additional hours. […]

Posts referencing “megacycle” on Reddit suggest that Amazon warehouses around the country have been rapidly shifting to this new schedule since at least August 2020, often with little warning. For workers used to picking and packing boxes on four or six or eight hour shifts, the transition to the ten hour shift creates an even greater risk for workplace injuries.

The National Employment Law Project found in a 2020 report on workplaces injuries in Amazon warehouses is twice that of the national average for the warehouse industry.