Amazon workers at high risk of injury during Prime Day, says Sen. Sanders

Amazon’s injury rate during its busiest periods of the year – Prime Day and the holiday shopping season – may be even higher than previously reported, according to an analysis from Sen. Bernie Sanders.

The Vermont Independent and chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions – or HELP – Committee has led a yearlong investigation of working conditions in Amazon’s warehouses. The committee interviewed more than 100 current and former employees and reviewed several internal documents provided by the company.

The investigation found Amazon warehouse workers are at a high risk of injury, particularly during the company’s peak shopping seasons, according to an interim report Sanders released on Monday, at the start of Amazon’s 2024 Prime Day sales event.

Sanders accused Amazon of understaffing its warehouses during peak periods and requiring employees to work long overtime hours to keep packages moving. He also alleged that Amazon’s in-house medical team had been encouraging workers not to seek outside medical care, leading to a skewed perception that the company’s injury rate has fallen over the past four years.

Citing internal data that Amazon shared with the committee, the interim report found that Amazon’s injury rate during Prime Day 2019 was roughly 45 injuries per 100 workers.

That’s significantly higher than at other points throughout the year, according to the internal Amazon document shared in Sanders’ report. On Labor Day in 2019, for example, Amazon recorded roughly 30 injuries per 100 workers.

It’s also a much higher injury rate than previously reported. Based on data Amazon disclosed to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Amazon’s recordable injury rate for Prime Day 2019 was more than 10 injuries per 100 workers.

“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,” Sanders said in a statement.

“Amazon continues to treat its workers as disposable and with complete contempt for their safety and well-being. … Amazon must be held accountable for the horrendous working conditions at its warehouses and substantially reduce its injury rates.”

Amazon disputed the report’s findings on Tuesday, and accused Sanders of drawing “sweeping and inaccurate conclusions based on unverified anecdotes.” It also said the report “misrepresents documents that are several years old and contained factual errors and faulty analysis.”

The company says its warehouses are getting safer due to its investments in training, technology and dedicated safety professionals. Its annual safety report showed a decrease in injury rates in 2023 for the second year in a row.

In 2023, Amazon reported 4.7 injuries per 200,000 working hours at its global facilities, compared with 5.1 injuries per 200,000 working hours the year before.

In 2019, Amazon’s report showed 6.7 injuries per 200,000 working hours globally.

“The safety and health of our employees is and always will be our top priority – it comes before everything else we do,” spokesperson Kelly Nantel said Tuesday.

“We’ve cooperated throughout this investigation, including providing thousands of pages of information and documents,” she continued. “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.”

Ongoing investigation

Sanders and the HELP Committee launched the investigation into Amazon last June.

The probe, focused on Amazon’s worker safety, demanded the company provide information about its injury and turnover rates, the alleged connection between the pace of work and injury rates at its facilities and the medical care provided at Amazon’s on-site clinics.

Last month, nearly a year after launching the investigation, more than 30 groups signed a letter to Sanders asking for a public release of the findings.

On Monday, Sanders released the interim report. The investigation is ongoing and the committee plans to release a future publication, Sanders’ report said.

The interim report focused largely on the increased rate of injury during Amazon’s Prime Day, a 48-hour sales event that generally falls in the summer. Amazon’s internal documents included injuries that the company was not required to disclose to OSHA, leading to the discrepancy between what the company had reported and what the investigation found, the report said.

Amazon’s total injury rate for Prime Day 2019 – 45 injuries per 100 workers – included some minor injuries, such as cuts and bruises, Sanders’ report found. But it also included serious injuries, such as torn rotator cuffs and concussions.

Workplace safety regulators and workers’ advocacy groups have accused Amazon of misleading the public about its injury rate in the past.

OSHA found in a 2022 citation that Amazon had failed to properly record work-related injuries at warehouses in five states. In a recent hazard letter issued to an Amazon warehouse in St. Peters, Missouri, OSHA accused Amazon of using its in-house medical team to deliver “ ‘first’ aid for the same acute injury on the 10th, 20th, or 30th visit.”

Nantel, the Amazon spokesperson, disputed the claims that the company underreports injuries. An OSHA investigation found “no intentional, willful or systemic errors in our reporting,” she said.

Sanders also alleged that Amazon warehouses have been “regularly understaffed” during Prime Day and the holiday season in the past. The report cited an internal Amazon document from Oct. 2020 that found the company’s operating head count was less than 80%. The following year, from the beginning of May

Nantel disputed that claim as well. “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,” she said.

On Tuesday, following the report’s release, some business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, criticized the analysis as “partisan and misleading.”

Yet, three workers who spoke with the Athena Coalition, a worker advocacy group, said the Sanders report accurately represented what they had experienced at work. Amazon pushed them to move quickly and get customer orders out the door, at the risk of increased injuries among its workforce, the employees said.

“The pace of work at Amazon is dangerous,” said Lanita Hammons, an Amazon employee in Little Rock, Ark., who provided testimony to the Senate HELP Committee. “This Senate investigation backs up what workers have been saying all along.” through the end of June, Amazon said it had met only 71% of its hiring target.