Amazon brushed off internal warnings about worker injuries, Senate probe finds

Amazon knew of the link between increased worker injuries and the company’s production quotas, but its executives allegedly rejected safety recommendations to loosen its mandates, an investigation by lawmakers found.

The findings are based on Internal Amazon documents compiled by the Senate Committee on Health Education, Labor and Pensions, which is chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. 

“The shockingly dangerous working conditions at Amazon’s warehouses revealed in this 160-page report are beyond unacceptable,” Sanders said in a statement. “Amazon’s executives repeatedly chose to put profits ahead of the health and safety of its workers by ignoring recommendations that would substantially reduce injuries.”

Amazon disputes the findings and accused Sanders of misrepresenting the company’s safety record. 

The “report is wrong on the facts and weaves together out-of-date-documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a preconceived narrative,” a company spokesperson said.

According to the Senate panel, Amazon in 2021 began studying the impact of repetitive motions on warehouse workers, including how many products they could pick from robotic shelving units. The internal research found that employees who were trying to keep pace with company production quotas usually exceeded the limit beyond which injury rates increased, the report found. 

That same study also advised using software to monitor the rate at which workers were picking products and to institute additional breaks to ensure employees were not overdoing the repeated motions. But that recommendation and others aimed at improving workplace safety at Amazon were rejected by senior executives concerned about the “customer experience,” the Senate committee said.

A separate investigation by CBS News found that Amazon trucking contractors have higher rates of safety violations. Questions about the e-commerce company’s practices for moving packages between facilities surfaced after the January death of a 19-year-old Texas college student who was killed in a crash with an Amazon contract driver. 

A CBS News analysis of federal safety data found that Amazon contractors in the company’s delivery network had monthly violation rates — such as speeding and texting while driving — that were usually double those of carriers who didn’t transport for Amazon. 

In the past two years, at least 57 people have died in more than four dozen crashes involving federally regulated carriers shipping for Amazon, according to data from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), though the data does not indicate who was at fault in these incidents. 

Amazon disputes those findings. Tim Goodman, Amazon’s global legal director for road safety, told CBS News that although the company requires background checks for contracted drivers who deliver directly to customers’ homes, said Amazon relies on the FMCSA to oversee so-called middle-mile contractors who move freight between facilities in larger vehicles.