Investigations into Amazon’s safety procedures surrounding the tornado that caused the deaths of six workers in a warehouse in Illinois last year have demonstrated that the company’s safety rules are “wholly inadequate,” Democratic lawmakers say.
On Wednesday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-New York) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri) sent a letter to Amazon’s chairman Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy criticizing the company for doing the “bare minimum” to protect its workers from danger.
The letter comes after the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) found in an investigation, released late last month, that the company’s safety protocols met minimum legal requirements but were still lacking in several key areas that could have helped the employees be more prepared in the event of a natural disaster.
“Although Amazon told us in its January 3, 2022 response that ‘safety is our top priority,’ the OSHA findings revealed glaring gaps in Amazon’s safety procedures, including flawed safety training, inadequate emergency procedures, and the inability of Amazon managers to follow the procedures that were in place,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
The lawmakers further went on to say that the company needs to update its safety protocols to better protect its nearly 1 million warehouse workers across the country. “These findings reveal a wholly inadequate safety culture at Amazon, which potentially contributed to the death of six workers and, if not addressed, will continue to put thousands more workers across the country at risk.”
Wednesday’s letter follows up on a note that Amazon sent in January in response to the lawmakers’ first letter to the company, shortly after six workers were killed when a tornado caused an Amazon warehouse to collapse in Edwardsville, Illinois. Workers said that the company’s policy disallowing workers from having their phones at work and the company’s lack of comprehensive disaster safety training may have contributed to the deaths.
In the company’s response to the lawmakers, Amazon Vice President of Public Policy Brian Huseman provided some details about the warehouse and boasted that the company spent $300 million on safety matters in 2021. Huseman also said that the company was conducting an internal investigation into the incident.
But while Amazon has promised to become “Earth’s Safest Place to Work,” reports have found that its warehouses are actually uniquely dangerous places to work in. Last month, a report by the Strategic Organizing Center found that the company’s injury rate increased between 2020 and 2021 and that nearly half of the workplace injuries in the entire U.S. warehouse sector last year happened at Amazon facilities. Amazon employs only about a third of warehouse workers in the country.
According to the lawmakers’ latest letter, Amazon’s response appeared to have stretched the truth on how managers responded to the tornado. While Amazon claimed that managers “immediately implemented the facility’s emergency action plan for a tornado” when the warning was received, the lawmakers note that OSHA’s findings contradict that account of events.
OSHA found that managers couldn’t implement the plan because the megaphone meant to be used for an emergency was “locked in a cage and not accessible.” Managers instead had to communicate verbally with employees, leading to a “chaotic emergency situation.”
“The OSHA inspection and your response to our letter indicate that Amazon will do only the bare minimum – and sometimes less than that – to keep its workers safe,” Warren, Ocasio-Cortez and Bush wrote. They urge the company to comply with a House Committee on Oversight and Reform request for documents in its investigation into the company’s safety practices.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.