BREAKING NEWS: Amazon Pushes Back on Report that Worker Injuries Spike During Prime Days, Holidays

For millions of people, 16-17 July 2024 are “Prime Days” for shopping. They troll the Amazon web site, searching for great deals on electronics, appliances, exercise equipment, personal care items, and much, much more. But do those deals come at too high a price for Amazon's 1.1 million employees?

If you ask U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chairman of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the answer is yes. He released an interim report 15 July 2024 as part of a sweeping investigation he launched in June 2023 into what his press release calls “Amazon's unacceptable corporate greed and abysmal workplace safety practices.”

“The incredibly dangerous working conditions at Amazon revealed in this investigation are a perfect example of the type of corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of,” said Sanders. “Despite making $36 billion in profits last year and providing its CEO with over $275 million in compensation over the past three years, Amazon continues to treat its workers as disposable and with complete contempt for their safety and wellbeing.”

Sanders called working conditions at Amazon unacceptable, adding that Amazon “must be held accountable for the horrendous working conditions at its warehouses and substantially reduce its injury rates.”

Not surprisingly, Amazon is pushing back…hard. The data published in Sander's report, PEAK SEASONS, PEAK INJURIES: Amazon Warehouses Are Especially Dangerous During Prime Day and the Holiday Season-and the Company Knows It, is 4 to 5 years old, Amazon points out, and does not reflect the reality of the company's safety story today.

“The safety and health of our employees is and always will be our top priority-it comes before everything else we do. And since 2019, we've made significant progress-reducing our recordable incident rate (which includes anything that requires more than basic first aid) in the U.S. by 28%, and our lost time incident rate (which only includes more significant injuries that require an employee to miss at least one day of work) by 75%,” said Kelly Nantel, Director of Corporate Global Media Relations at Amazon.

Nantel noted that Amazon cooperated throughout Sander's investigation, including providing thousands of pages of information and documents. “But unfortunately, this report-which was not shared with us before publishing-ignores our progress and paints a one-sided, false narrative using only a fraction of the information we've provided,” she said.

She added that the report “draws sweeping and inaccurate conclusions based on unverified anecdotes, and it misrepresents documents that are several years old and contained factual errors and faulty analysis.”

Amazon issued a corporate statement on 16 July 2024 emphasizing that the report points to injury data from 2019 and 2020 to make assertions about the current working conditions at Amazon facilities, and notes those figures “are outdated, do not reflect current practices, and were affected by an unprecedented global pandemic.” The report also used these numbers despite the fact that Amazon's more recent data is readily available from the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) as well as the company's publicly issued safety reports, “which shows significant improvements over the last four years.”

The company claims it explained these issues during the investigation, but the report included the outdated data anyway, “which we can assume is because Senator Sanders and his staff had a pre-conceived narrative and not a hunger for the actual truth.”

What's Disclosed in the PEAK SEASONS, PEAK INJURIES Report?

The report claims that internal company documents show that Amazon's total injury rate, which includes injuries that the company is not required to disclose to OSHA, was nearly 45 injuries per 100 workers during the week of Prime Day in 2019. Its rate of “recordable” injuries-injuries the company is required to disclose to OSHA-was more than double the industry average, with over 10 injuries per 100 workers during that same period.

According to information from Sander's office, the report draws on the HELP Committee Majority Staff's interviews with more than 100 Amazon workers over the course of the investigation. It details those workers' experiences in Amazon's warehouses, including the pressure they face to meet demand during Prime Day and the holiday season, and demonstrates the company's disregard for the safety of its workers.

Outlining what it calls the company's “documented history of medical mismanagement and under-recording of injuries,” the report suggests that even the high rate of recordable injuries is less than the true number of serious injuries that Amazon workers sustain on the job. As proof, the report cites OSHA documentation of Amazon's pattern of providing on-site first aid to injured workers-even seriously injured workers-instead of referring those workers to outside medical providers for needed care. It also notes that OSHA has cited Amazon for failing to properly record injuries based on federal or state record keeping regulations in at least 20 facilities since 2019. In April 2023, OSHA had 20 open inspections at Amazon locations in the U.S.

Amazon: Claims of Underreporting Are False

“The claims that we systemically underreport injuries, and that our actual injury rates are higher than publicly reported, are false,” countered Nantel. Amazon is required to report every injury that needs more than basic first aid, she noted, adding, “and that’s what we do.”

In December 2022, OSHA announced it had cited Amazon during inspections at six warehouse facilities in five states for failing to properly record work-related injuries and illnesses. OSHA issued Amazon citations for 14 recordkeeping violations, including failing to record injuries and illnesses, misclassifying injuries and illnesses, not recording injuries and illnesses within the required time, and not providing OSHA with timely injury and illness records.

Claiming that any company might make “an occasional clerical error,” Nantel pointed out that after a nearly six-month investigation that gave OSHA access to all of Amazon's internal injury and incident report notes, and after conducting closed-door interviews with Amazon employees, the agency “found no intentional, willful, or systemic errors in our reporting.”

A review of Amazon inspection data on OSHA's website reveals that the company reached a formal settlement with OSHA for violations classified as “other,” but contested violations classified as “serious,” and the case status at all six facilities remains open. For the 10-year period from 17 July 2014 to 17 July 2024, OSHA records indicate the agency conducted 662 enforcement inspections at Amazon facilities.

Report Claims Understaffing During Peak Operations

The report released by the HELP Committee claims that Amazon is aware of an understaffing problem at its warehouses. During Prime Day and the holiday season, Amazon receives significantly more orders than it does during other periods. During these periods, according to the report, workers are expected to work even harder, for longer hours, without the appropriate amount of support for that workload. This understaffing increases the risk of injuries for Amazon workers, according to Sanders.

As noted in the report, one worker told the HELP Committee that his delivery station had to process twice as many packages per day during those periods. “Peak hits, they blew out the warehouse,” the report quoted him as saying. “We got 120,000 packages when we normally handle 60,000.

In response to this dramatic increase in orders, the report claims Amazon requires warehouse workers to move faster and work both longer shifts and additional shifts in the form of what the company calls “mandatory extra time.” One worker told the Committee that during a peak period, workers at her facility were required to work back-to-back 12-hour shifts with just a seven-hour break in between shifts.

In its statement, Amazon addressed anecdotal claims made in the PEAK SEASONS, PEAK INJURIES report, saying, “Even with a workforce the size of ours, when allegations of injuries or safety violations are brought to our attention, we work to quickly and thoroughly investigate them so that we can address them. Anonymous and unverified anecdotes like the ones in the report make it difficult for us to determine the details, and whether the claims are true or accurate.”

The company said it offers multiple mechanisms for employees to share their feedback, including all-team meetings and one-on-one discussions to engage with leaders, raise issues, and suggest improvements. For example, Amazon has an ethics line that is open 24/7 for anonymously reporting issues. It offers message boards in every building where employees can write questions or feedback (anonymously or not) and get responses from their managers. The boards are located in common and break areas throughout each site, so all employees can see each of the questions and answers at any time.

The statement from Amazon highlighted a program called Dragonfly, which allows employees to report potential hazards, near-misses, or incidents, as well as raise safety suggestions. “In 2023, we actioned on more than 200,000 pieces of feedback collected via Dragonfly,” said Amazon. “And those are just a few examples. We also know that-with a workforce the size of ours [over 1.1 million employees globally]-not everyone will have the same experiences. But we work hard to support our team, listen to their feedback, and keep getting better every day. Individual anecdotes in reports like this rarely reflect the experience of the vast majority.”

In her remarks, Nantel asserted that the claims in the report that Amazon is not adequately staffed for busy shopping periods are just not true. “We carefully plan and staff up for major events, ensure that we have excess capacity across our network, and design our network so that orders are automatically routed to sites that can handle unexpected spikes in volume.”

For those doubting Amazon's claims, Nantel issued this challenge: “If someone wants to truly understand the facts about our safety record and our progress toward being the safest company in the industries in which we operate, we encourage them to review our annual safety report or come visit one of our fulfillment sites to see for themselves.”

——-

Editor's Note: 3E is expanding news coverage to provide customers with insights into topics that enable a safer, more sustainable world by protecting people, safeguarding products, and helping businesses grow. Breaking News articles keep you up-to-date with news as it's happening.