Charles Langston:Amazon Prime Day is an especially dangerous time for warehouse workers, Senate report says

Amazon warehouse in Shakopee fined by OSHA

Amazon's annual Prime Day promotion kicked off on Tuesday, with the event offering deals for members and generating billions in revenue for the retailer. It can also raise the risk of getting hurt for the company's hundreds of thousands of 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 its reportable injuries surpassing 10 per 100 workers during Prime Day 2019, according to findings released Monday by Bernie Sanders, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

"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 Tuesday.

The injury rate increases when including incidents that aren't reported to government regulators, noted the report, which based its conclusions on the company's internal data. Amazon's total injury rate during Prime Day 2019 was just under 45 injuries per 100 workers after including those the company did not disclose to the Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration. 

A spokesperson for Sanders' office said the committee relied on 2019 and 2020 workplace injury rate data because that's what Amazon provided for 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. 

One worker relayed to the Senate investigators how their facility saved time in installing a new conveyer belt by opting out of a feature that automatically stops the contraption when jammed or overloaded, preventing packages — some of which weight up to 50 pounds — from piling up, falling off 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 major events and that its networks are designed to route orders to sites that can handle unexpected spikes in volume. 

The Senate review ignored the progress the company has made since 2019 in reducing its rate of recordable incidents – those which require more care than basic first aid – by 28%. The company also has improved the rate of significant injuries that require an employee to miss at least a 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, noted Sanders, with the Vermont independent making the case that Amazon has the resources to makes its facilities safe.

The findings echo other reports about worker safety at Amazon warehouses, with a study released last year by the University of Illinois finding 41% of the e-commerce giant's workers had gotten hurt on the job, and 69% of them had taken unpaid time to recover in the prior month. 

The ability to take days off without pay is another difficult issue for Amazon's warehouse workers. Separate findings published in May by the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois Chicago found about half of frontline warehouse workers at Amazon struggle to make ends meet, with 53% experiencing hunger in the prior three months. 

"Nobody should have to choose between a debilitating injury and paying rent," the Athena Coalition, an advocacy group that represents workers and small businesses, said Tuesday in a statement about the Sanders report. "We are grateful to the HELP Committee for heeding Amazon workers' call for meaningful accountability for Amazon's injury crisis, particularly during this season of extreme heat when workers are forced to work physically demanding jobs without adequate water, cool air, or breaks."

That said, Amazon is not without its defenders. Test-preparation company PPI responded to the Senate report by tweeting that the company's "track record of enhancing worker safety while creating hundreds of thousands of well-paying jobs deserves recognition, not criticism." 

"Amazon provides jobs for more than a million Americans, and tens of millions enjoy the services the company provides," the U.S. Chamber of Commerce asserted on Tuesday, calling the report "partisan and misleading."

—The Associated Press contributed to this report

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• Amazon Prime Day

Kate Gibson

Kate Gibson is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch in New York, where she covers business and consumer finance.