Sen. Bernie Sanders Probe Reveals ‘Incredibly Dangerous’ Warehouse Conditions During Amazon Prime Day

Amazon warehouses are a relative minefield of workplace hazards during Prime Day and the holiday season—and the company knows it, alleges a report from Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP).

Released Tuesday as part of a “sweeping” investigation into Amazon’s workplace safety practices that began last summer, the interim report unearthed internal company data that appears to show that almost half of Amazon’s total U.S. warehouse workforce suffered injuries during the week of Prime Day in 2019.

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According to the HELP Committee, documents from Amazon show the e-tailer’s total injury rate—including incidents it wasn’t required to disclose to Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)—reached a level of almost 45 injuries per 100 workers during that time period. The rate of so-called “recordable” incidents, which Amazon is by law required to disclose, was still more than twice the industry average (more than 10 injuries per 100 workers during the same period), the report said.

The research also drew upon interviews conducted by HELP Committee staff with over 100 Amazon warehouse workers, which elucidated their experiences during Prime Day and the Q4 peak. They felt strong pressure from the company to meet surging demand during the annual online shopping event as well as during the winter holidays, and those conditions led to cut corners and a disregard for protocols designed to keep workers safe, they said.

One worker employed during the 2019 Prime Day and holiday periods told Committee staff that his delivery station was forced to process twice as many packages as usual. “Peak hits, they blew out the warehouse. We got 120,000 packages when we normally handle 60,000,” he said.

Instead of providing more resources, Amazon demands more of its warehouse workers, requiring them to move more quickly, lengthening their shifts and adding shifts in a protocol that it calls “mandatory extra time,” the HELP Committee found. Another worker detailed the experience of working back-to-back 12-hour shifts with just a seven-hour break in between.

“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,” Sen. Sanders said Tuesday.

“Despite making $36 billion in profits last year and providing its CEO with over $275 million in compensation over the past three years, Amazon continues to treat its workers as disposable and with complete contempt for their safety and wellbeing,” he added.

The report asserted that Amazon displays an institutionalized problem with understaffing during key commerce periods, which exacerbates risks to workers. The company acknowledged this in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and in its 2023 Annual Report, where it wrote that it “may be unable to adequately staff our fulfillment network and customer service centers during these peak periods,” including “promotional events,” like Prime Day and the holidays.

The Committee said it also uncovered evidence that Amazon routinely fails to refer its employees for outside medical care in the event of an injury—which can impact whether that incident is considered reportable to OSHA. Under OSHA regulations, injuries treated medically beyond a first-aid basis must be disclosed. The Committee accused Amazon of medical mismanagement for failing to send workers off-site for care, sometimes ignoring serious on-the-job injuries.

OSHA has cited Amazon for its alleged failures to properly record injuries based on federal or state record-keeping regulations at a minimum of 20 warehouses and distribution centers since 2019.

“That is unacceptable and that has got to change. Amazon must be held accountable for the horrendous working conditions at its warehouses and substantially reduce its injury rates,” Sanders said.

The HELP Committee report’s timely release took place on the first day of Amazon’s two-day Prime Day event. Last year, the massive blowout sales event generated $12.7 billion through the reported sale of 375 million products over the course of two days.

Amazon wasted no time in hitting back at the HELP Committee’s findings, releasing a missive on its corporate website saying the interim report “is wrong on the facts and builds a misleading narrative.”

The fifth largest company in the world said the findings relied on “a small selection of outdated data, unverified anecdotes, and incorrect analysis,” asserting that Amazon has made significant progress on safety across its network. “The report points to injury data from 2019 and 2020 to make assertions about our current workplace, but those figures are outdated, do not reflect current practices, and were affected by an unprecedented global pandemic.”

Amazon said its most recent reporting shows that it reduced our recordable incident rate—which includes anything that requires more than basic first aid—by 28 percent in the U.S. , between 2019 and 2023, and reduced its “lost-time incident rate,” which denotes significant injuries that require an employee to miss at least one day of work, by 75 percent.

Those advancements in workplace safety took place during periods of peak demand and “record-breaking volumes,” they added. “According to the latest industry data available, we’re now better than the transportation industry average and in line with the warehousing industry average.”

Amazon said it has allocated $750 million to safety improvements this year alone, following up on $1 billion spent between 2019 and 2023 and $15 billion spent on Covid-19 precautions.

The group also insisted that allegations that it encourages workers not to report injuries are baseless, and repudiated accusations about attempts to hide its total rate of injury from OSHA. “For any injury requiring more than first aid, we record and report it,” the post said, noting that “OSHA requires employers to provide easy access to things like Band-Aids—and we do. But OSHA does not require that this be reported. We’ve reported our recordable injuries accurately and transparently.”

Amazon said there’s “no truth” to the reporting that its facilities are understaffed during peak periods, noting that it hires “thousands of seasonal employees” and reroutes orders to different sites if customer demand balloons and a certain warehouse can’t handle the increased workload.

“We’ve worked diligently for many months to share facts and information with Chairman Sanders and his committee,” Amazon staff wrote. “We shared thousands of pages of information and documents throughout this process.”

“As part of the investigation, we opened our doors to staff to tour two of our facilities,” the post added. “If you want to learn more, we encourage you to visit one of our sites, meet some members of our team, and decide for yourself.”