Amazon\u00a0Prime Day, the 48-hour discount blitz that kicks off Tuesday, is a \u201cmajor\u201d cause of worker injuries, according to the\u00a0preliminary results\u00a0of a Senate probe.<\/p>\n
The Senate\u2019s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Tuesday released the interim results of\u00a0a yearlong investigation\u00a0into Amazon\u2019s warehouse working conditions just as the company\u00a0holds\u00a0its annual Prime Day deals event.<\/p>\n
Amazon provided the committee with internal data from Prime Day 2019 that showed its total injury rate, including those the company is not required to disclose to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, was \u201cjust under\u201d 45 injuries per 100 workers, which amounts to \u201cnearly half of the company\u2019s warehouse workers,\u201d the report states.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmazon continues to treat its workers as disposable and with complete contempt for their safety and wellbeing,\u201d Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who chairs the HELP committee, said in a statement. \u201cThat is unacceptable and that has got to change.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to the report, the internal data provided by Amazon shows that its warehouses have been understaffed during Prime Day and the holiday shopping seasons, \u201cendangering workers who have to manage increased volume without increased support,\u201d according to the report. The report cites an internal Amazon document, titled \u201c2021 Prime Day Lessons Learned,\u201d which states Amazon \u201cmet only 71.2 percent of its hiring target,\u201d between May and June of 2021, ending the week of that year\u2019s Prime Day event.<\/p>\n
Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said the report ignores the progress Amazon has made.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt 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,\u201d Nantel said. \u201cFor example, one of the false claims in the report implies that we\u2019re not adequately staffed for busy shopping periods.\u201d Nantel added that, since 2019, Amazon has reduced its incident rate for anything requiring more than basic first aid by 28% in the U.S. and lost time incident rate, which includes more significant injuries requiring an employee to miss at least one day of work, by 75%.<\/p>\n
Amazon\u00a0has faced scrutiny\u00a0in recent years over its workplace injury record and its treatment of warehouse and delivery workers. It\u2019s\u00a0been cited by\u00a0federal regulators for safety violations. OSHA and the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office\u00a0are investigating conditions\u00a0at several warehouses, while the U.S. Department of Justice is examining whether Amazon underreports injuries.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company said in March that its injury rates have improved, and it announced\u00a0plans to invest\u00a0more than $750 million in safety initiatives this year. It has also appealed\u00a0a string of citations\u00a0issued by OSHA around safety hazards and violations.<\/p>\n
Amazon has said it\u2019s begun to automate some tasks and is also\u00a0rolling out more robotic systems\u00a0in warehouse facilities that the company says can improve safety, although that\u00a0prospect has been debated.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Amazon\u00a0Prime Day, the 48-hour discount blitz that kicks off Tuesday, is a \u201cmajor\u201d cause of worker injuries, according to the\u00a0preliminary results\u00a0of a Senate probe. The Senate\u2019s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee on Tuesday released the interim results of\u00a0a yearlong investigation\u00a0into Amazon\u2019s warehouse working conditions just as the company\u00a0holds\u00a0its annual Prime Day deals event. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":6191,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}