In Blistering Senate Report, Bernie Sanders Says Amazon Ignored Warnings About Worker Safety

This week, the Senate committee assisted by the well-known publisher Bernie Sanders published a report accusing the e-commerce giant Amazon of promoting a workplace that is dangerous to the health of its employees. What is even worse is that the report says that the company knew that its internal policies were harming its employees, but it has often chosen to ignore that crisis in order to gain profits. Amazon declined to comment on the report’s conclusions.

The report, produced by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, reveals that Amazon has conducted multiple internal studies designed to assess employee health and safety risks. Those reports, variously called “Project Elderwand” and “Project Soteria,” ultimately found that the company’s quota system (where employees are required to meet certain production limits) and its focus on speed (employees are pressured to complete tasks quickly, report. requests) were driving workers that they hurt themselves. The reports suggested that Amazon relaxed its quota requirements to avoid harming its workers. However, the New York Times writes that the company’s top management ultimately “rejected the recommendations” from its internal reports.

Indeed, the committee said it found that “Amazon is not only aware of the connection between speed and injuries, but also that the company has directly rejected possible safety improvements, accepting injuries to its employees as the cost of doing business.” The report also notes that, “Surprisingly, although the company refuses to implement” its own “recommended security improvements, it also misrepresents its injury rates and claims that its warehouses are more secure than they actually are.”

The injuries in question appear to be caused by workers having to perform repetitive body movements throughout the workday, the report said. “Amazon forces workers to walk in unsafe ways and repeat the same movements hundreds and thousands of times each time, leading to very high rates of musculoskeletal disorders,” the report said, noting that although the company “knows that these repetitive movements – performed in shifts of more than hours 10 to 12—causing musculoskeletal disorders, the company refuses to take action to protect workers.”

“Amazon’s refusal to protect workers is egregious given its incredible financial resources,” the report said, reminding readers that Amazon is “the sixth largest company in the world and the second largest employer in the United States” and that Jeff Bezos, the company’s founder, is a man the third richest in the world.

When reached for comment by Gizmodo, an Amazon spokesperson said the report was based on old data that Amazon has since discarded. “Senator Sanders’ report is factually incorrect and incorporates out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create an imaginary narrative,” Amazon spokesman Steve Kelly said in a statement. “The truth is, our expectations of our employees are safe and reasonable.”

“Despite that, and the fact that Sen. Sanders approached this process with a preconceived narrative, we are cooperating with Sen. Sanders and his staff throughout this investigation, providing thousands of pages of documents and other information,” the statement continued. . “We have repeatedly asked Sen. Sanders to visit one of our facilities to see for himself our working conditions. Unfortunately, these invitations were not answered.”

Despite the company’s denial of the report’s findings, the Times notes that “the Senate report’s findings are consistent with investigations by state and federal regulators in recent years.”