Lauren Rosenblatt / The Seattle Instances (TNS)
Congress is urgent Amazon to share extra details about its security report — from warehouses to supply drivers — however some staff’ rights advocacy teams say lawmakers aren’t transferring quick sufficient.
On Thursday, roughly one 12 months since Sen. Bernie Sanders launched a congressional investigation into Amazon’s warehouse working circumstances, greater than 30 advocacy teams despatched a letter to the Vermont lawmaker asking for a public launch of the findings.
Sanders requested Amazon warehouse staff final June to share their tales and the corporate to share details about its damage charge, worker turnover, tempo of labor and in-house medical companies to deal with office accidents.
“Given the excessive stakes of this investigation, we’re wanting to see progress,” the advocacy teams wrote Thursday.
“If lawmakers and regulators fail to take motion, the corporate’s harmful and extractive mannequin will change into the usual in warehousing, logistics and retail,” the letter continued. “The consequence will likely be a punishing, untenable actuality for staff in these vital jobs.”
The teams hoped to get extra details about the investigation by mid-July, when Amazon’s annual Prime Day sale will imply a spike in orders and the opportunity of elevated stress on staff to maintain packages transferring by means of the warehouses.
Amazon disputed Sanders’ authentic allegations final June that the corporate’s warehouses are “one of the crucial harmful” locations to work. The corporate stated it has seen a decline in damage charges for 2 consecutive years, as a result of investments in coaching, office “security professionals,” know-how and tools.
However, some advocacy teams, together with a few of the organizations that signed Thursday’s letter, have accused Amazon of failing to inform the entire story in its security studies. On prime of that, the teams say, Amazon nonetheless has an extremely excessive damage charge at its warehouses.
Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel stated the corporate has cooperated with the investigation and can proceed to. “Our security report has continued to enhance,” she stated. “We proceed to work to be greatest at school.”
Sanders, who chairs the Senate’s Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions, or HELP, Committee, didn’t reply to requests for remark in time for publication.
The letter comes on the similar time a bipartisan group of senators is trying into one other side of Amazon’s workforce. A bunch of 29 senators despatched a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in January asking for extra details about working circumstances for Amazon’s community of unbiased supply drivers.
A number of the firm’s Supply Service Companions, unbiased companies that assist make deliveries for Amazon, have accused the corporate of setting an unsafe tempo of labor and making a hazardous work setting for drivers, together with skipping breaks and making deliveries in excessive climate circumstances with out correct tools.
These allegations have led drivers to picket 25 Amazon warehouses in 9 states, in response to the congressional letter.
“Over the previous couple of years, studies of unsafe and unfair working circumstances have demonstrated that widespread security and labor violations look like a characteristic, not a bug, of the DSP program,” lawmakers wrote within the letter. “Clearly, additional Senate oversight of Amazon’s DSP program is overdue.”
Amazon disputed the allegations within the letter.
“DSPs are small enterprise house owners and entrepreneurs who’re creating good jobs, with nice pay and advantages, for greater than 275,000 drivers around the globe,” Lynch Vogel stated. “We strongly dispute the claims within the letter and look ahead to sharing the info.”
Ryan Gerety, govt director of the Athena Coalition, one of many advocacy teams that signed Thursday’s letter, stated the teams look ahead to seeing the outcomes of each inquiries however are notably involved in regards to the standing of the investigation into warehouse working circumstances as a result of it has been a 12 months because it started.
“In response to a groundswell of Amazon staff organizing for higher circumstances throughout the nation, a number of state and federal investigations are presently scrutinizing Amazon’s therapy of its staff,” Gerety stated. “Now, we want motion.”
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