Just in time for the holiday shopping season, as Amazon is busy getting packages into the hands of billions of people worldwide, the outgoing chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) put a lump of coal under Amazon’s tree.
This week, the Democratic staff of the committee led by Senator Bernie Sanders (D-VT) released a report, the culmination of an 18-month investigation into allegations of safety issues at Amazon. Not surprisingly, the report paints the company as negligent and efficiency-obsessed to the detriment of workers’ safety and health.
According to the report:
the Committee found extensive evidence of a corporate culture obsessed with speed and productivity. This culture, driven by relentless productivity demands, has resulted in systemic safety failures and high rates of injury.
The Committee also uncovered evidence that Amazon is aware of the safety risks caused by the speed it demands of its workers…
In short, the Committee’s investigation found that Amazon is not only aware of the connection between speed and injuries, but also that the company specifically rejected potential safety improvements, accepting injuries to its workers as the cost of doing business.
Amazon responded that the report is deeply flawed, beginning with the premise that increased speed leads to more injuries when in fact injuries have fallen:
…what you’d see is that as our productivity and speed goes up, injuries go up. But what’s actually happened over the past five years is exactly the opposite – we’ve increased our delivery speeds, while decreasing the injury rates across our network. How is that possible? Because speedy delivery doesn’t come from pushing people harder – it comes from getting products closer to customers and reducing the number of steps involved in going from a supplier to a customer.”
Ironically, as Amazon stated and Senator Sanders admitted, between 2019 and 2023, the company’s recordable injury rate fell by 30%. There’s no disagreement that injury rates have fallen, but the report paints this trend as deceptive with no evidence to explain why.
An Amazon spokeswoman called the report “wrong on the facts” and says it “weaves together out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a preconceived narrative.”
This highlights another major problem with this report. It relies on the interviews from a tiny proportion of the Amazon workforce: 135 people, or just 0.01% of Amazon’s workforce. These individuals may understandably be aggrieved after being injured on the job. We don’t want to minimize their experiences. However, to make sweeping conclusions about the treatment of an 800,000-person U.S. workforce from just 135 testimonies seems patently deceptive.
Amazon also answers concerns that its injury rates are in line with, if not better than, competitors. The company explained how it is constantly in the pursuit of improving staff safety by trying to understand how workers get injured and implementing changes to ensure such injuries do not reoccur. This was an area that the report nonsensically took issue with.
For Amazon opponents, this report is just fodder to be used against them. Regular customers and potential employees should be cautious in viewing this report as the barometer of the company’s treatment of workers. If anything, this episode sheds light for the public on how Amazon prioritizes customers and staff in pursuit of excellence.
It’s worth asking what drove Sanders and committee staff to investigate a single company. Looking at the report’s proposed solutions exposes the pro-union agenda at play. Many activist groups have sought to unionize Amazon workers and will use any attempt to push for workers to organize.
In a blog post, Glen Spencer, Senior Vice President of the Employment Policy Division at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, laid bare Sanders’ motives:
… the section titled “Legislative Recommendations” gives the game away. Rather than attempting to produce a comprehensive and credible study that might actually lead to workplace safety improvements, the entire document is actually meant to promote a partisan agenda of bills that the Democrat Senate has refused to pass…. Senator Sanders’ report has little to do with worker safety. Fortunately, it will also do little to move legislation that Congress has already rejected.
Last year, I had the privilege of visiting a local Amazon distribution center in my area of Maryland. I was shocked by what I saw. I observed an obsession with workers’ needs, safety, and concerns.
I expected to see a traditional factory line with workers hunched over conveyor belts. Instead, I observed an impressive operation that married tech innovation with worker attention and focus. Stations were equipped with everything needed for workers to be comfortable while working and plenty of opportunities for them to get help when needed. Signs, arrows, and lights marked places to walk, stand, or move about with safety in mind. Workers have ample opportunities to not only communicate with each other and build community but also to share feedback with leadership that can lead to changes in both productivity and safety.
No workplace in this industry is immune from accidents and injuries, unfortunately. When they occur, it’s incumbent on employers like Amazon not only to address the occurrence but also to work to avoid repeat instances. This report paints an unflattering and even distorted picture of Amazon’s efforts in this regard.