Amazon’s Prime Day, which generated $12.7 billion in sales in 2023, can also lead to more worker injuries, a Senate probe finds.
Amazon’s annual Prime Day promotion , with the event offering deals for members and generating billions in revenue for the retailer. It can also raise the risk of getting hurt for the company’s hundreds of thousands of warehouse workers, according to a new congressional report.
Amazon warehouse workers are more than twice as likely to be injured during the Prime Day event than their industry peers, with its reportable injuries surpassing 10 per 100 workers during Prime Day 2019, according to findings released Monday by Bernie Sanders, chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
«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», Sanders said Tuesday.
The injury rate increases when including incidents that aren’t reported to government regulators, noted the report, which based its conclusions on the company’s internal data. Amazon’s total injury rate during Prime Day 2019 was just under 45 injuries per 100 workers after including those the company did not disclose to the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
A spokesperson for Sanders’ office said the committee relied on 2019 and 2020 workplace injury rate data because that’s what Amazon provided for the inquiry.
Because Amazon warehouses can be chronically understaffed at peak times, the retailer’s busiest periods — Prime Day and the holiday season — are by far the most dangerous for employees under pressure to work faster and for longer hours and to ignore safety rules, the report claims.
