Amazon’s annual Prime Day promotion started on tuesday, with the event offering deals to members and generating billions in revenue for the retailer. It could also increase the risk of injury for hundreds of thousands of the company’s warehouse workers, according to a new congressional report.
Amazon warehouse workers are more than twice as likely to be injured during the Prime Day event than their industry peers, with reported injuries exceeding 10 per 100 workers during Prime Day 2019, according to findings released Monday by Bernie Sanders, chairman of the Senate Committee. for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
“The incredibly dangerous working conditions at Amazon uncovered in this investigation are a perfect example of the kind of corporate greed that the American people are sick and tired of,” Sanders said Tuesday.
The rate of harm increases when incidents that go unreported to government regulators are included, noted the report, which based its conclusions on internal company data. Amazon’s total injury rate during Prime Day 2019 was just under 45 injuries per 100 workers, as it included those the company did not disclose to the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
A spokesman for Sanders’ office said the committee relied on workplace injury rate data for 2019 and 2020 because that’s what Amazon provided to the inquiry.
Because Amazon warehouses can be chronically understaffed at peak times, the retailer’s busiest periods — Prime Day and the holiday season — are by far the most dangerous for employees under pressure to work faster and for longer hours and to ignore safety rules, the report claims.
A worker told Senate investigators how their facility saved time installing a new conveyor belt by ditching a feature that automatically stops the construction when it becomes jammed or overloaded, preventing packages — some of which weigh up to 50 kilograms. falling and injuring workers.
Not so fast
The safety and health of its employees is Amazon’s top priority, and the report ignored the company’s progress in reducing injuries, an Amazon spokesperson told CBS MoneyWatch in an email.
Amazon also maintains that its warehouses are adequately staffed during busy shopping times, saying it plans ahead for large events and that its networks are designed to direct orders to sites that can handle sudden surges. of the volume.
The Senate review ignored the progress the company has made since 2019 in reducing the rate of recorded incidents – those requiring more care than basic first aid – by 28%. The company has also improved the rate of significant injuries that require an employee to miss at least one day of work by 75%, the Amazon spokesperson said.
The company booked $12.7 billion in sales during the two-day Prime Day event in 2023, Sanders noted, with independent Vermont arguing that Amazon has the resources to make its facilities safe.
The findings echo other reports about worker safety at Amazon warehouses, with a study published last year by the University of Illinois finding 41% of the e-commerce giant’s workers was injured at workand 69% of them had taken unpaid time off to recover in the past month.
The ability to take unpaid vacation days is another difficult issue for Amazon warehouse workers. Separate findings released in May by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois Chicago found ca half of Amazon’s front-line warehouse workers struggle to make ends meet, with 53% experiencing hunger in the previous three months.
“No one should have to choose between a debilitating injury and paying rent,” the Athena Coalition, an advocacy group representing workers and small businesses, said Tuesday in a statement about Sanders’ report. “We are grateful to the HELP Committee for listening to Amazon workers’ call for meaningful accountability for the Amazon injury crisis, especially during this season of extreme heat when workers are forced to perform physically demanding jobs without adequate water, fresh air, or rest.”
That said, Amazon is not without its defenders. Test preparation company PPI responded to the Senate report by tweeting that the company’s “record of increasing worker safety while creating hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs deserves recognition, not criticism.”
“Amazon provides jobs to more than one million Americans and tens of millions enjoy the services the company provides,” the US Chamber of Commerce said Tuesday, calling the report “partisan and misleading.”
— The Associated Press contributed to this report