Senate report: Amazon is aware of the risks of warehouse infections

Amazon is pushing US warehouse workers to fulfill orders at speeds that could cause infection rates to rise despite being aware of the risks, an investigation by Senator Bernie Sanders has found.

the Resultsfollowing an 18-month investigation into the company, backed up claims that workers and labor activists had made about the company for years.

The report accused the company of rejecting changes that would have reduced the pace of workers’ work, but improved safety because of concerns about the bottom line.

But Amazon He said The report was “factually incorrect” and included “selective and outdated information that lacks context and is not grounded in reality.”

“This investigation was not a fact-finding mission, but rather an attempt to collect and distort information to support a false narrative,” the company said.

Amazon, which employs nearly 800,000 people in the United States, has faced accusations over unsafe conditions in its warehouses for years.

These concerns increased during the Covid pandemic, when e-commerce exploded, leading to worker protests around the world.

Amid the controversy, founder Jeff Bezos said the company needs to improve the performance of its employees.

Senator Sanders, known for his pro-labor stance, It launched an investigation into Amazon’s practices in June 2023. Senate staff conducted 135 interviews and reviewed more than 1,000 documents.

Their analysis of public records found that Amazon-operated warehouses recorded 30% more infections than the warehousing industry average in 2023.

Amazon workers were also nearly twice as likely to be infected as people working in warehouses run by other companies in each of the past seven years, according to the report, which was signed by Democratic members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, and Labor. And pensions.

Amazon has examined the links between workplace speed and injury rates internally, including in a review called Project Soteria, according to the investigation.

But the report said the company chose not to adopt the recommended changes, which included providing more leave to workers and halting disciplinary actions against people who did not meet work speed requirements.

Investigators also accused Amazon of trying to “manipulate” data to mislead the public about its safety record.

Amazon said it was fair for the company to focus safety comparisons on large warehouses.

She accused the Senate investigation of ignoring inconvenient facts, such as declining infection rates and a recent court victory, which dismissed safety complaints.

Another team asked to review the recommendations of Amazon’s internal safety study found that the methodology was “unsound,” she said.

Amazon said “nothing” is more important to the company than employee safety.

“Senator Sanders and his staff chose to rely on Soteria’s debunked analysis because it fit the false narrative he wanted to build,” the company added.