Senate Investigation Finds that Amazon Manipulated Injury Data

Washington, DC (WorkersCompensation.com) – An investigation into Amazon led by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) found that the company manipulated workplace injury reports by discouraging workers from seeking outside medical care.

Additionally, the Congressional investigation found that the company disregarded its own internal research on improving safety. Released by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, the report said cherry picks statistics to obscure the fact that its warehouses are more dangerous than others. In fact, the company recorded 30 percent more injuries in 2023 than the national average for the warehouse industry, the report found.

“In its endless pursuit of profits, Amazon sacrifices workers’ bodies under the constant pressure of a surveillance system that enforces impossible rates,” Sanders said in a statement.

In 2021, an analysis of federal data found that Amazon’s injury rates were nearly double those of other warehouse businesses. Amazon said at the time that it was “continuously learning and seeing improvements through ergonomics programs, guided exercises at employees’ workstations, mechanical assistance equipment, workstation setup and design, and forklift telematics and guardrails.”

According to the report, on multiple occasions Amazon neglected to implement worker safety measures its own research recommended.

An internal study known as Project Elderwand estimated workers who pull items off shelves in the warehouses could make 1,940 repetitive movements in a 10-hour shift before risking injury to their lower back. But the Congressional report said the rules preventing workers from exceeding that limit were never impacted because of an impact on “customer experience.” The committee also said workers told interviewers they regularly exceeded those limits.

Another internal Amazon study, known as Project Soteria, identified risks for warehouse worker injuries and proposed changes to decrease injury rates, including slowing the work pace. Amazon rejected the changes, the committee said.

And the Congressional investigation found that Amazon discouraged and delayed injured workers from seeking outside medical care and repeatedly denied disabled workers’ requests for workplace accommodations.

“I don’t even use Amazon anymore, I’d rather wait … than have some poor employee in an Amazon warehouse get battered and bruised so I can get my book within six hours,” one worker told the Senate committee. “People don’t see that, they think it just appears by magic. But it doesn’t, it appears by blood, sweat, and tears.”

The Congressional committee’s report looked at over seven years of Amazon workplace injury data.  The committee said that Senate staffers interviewed more than 130 Amazon workers, many of whom reported that work injuries resulted in chronic pain and long-term disabilities, or made them unable to leave home or complete basic tasks. The investigation also reviewed about 280 documents Amazon provided to the committee.

Amazon disputed the committee’s findings.

“Sen. Sanders’ report is wrong on the facts and weaves together out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a preconceived narrative that he and his allies have been pushing for the past 18 months,” company spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement

There is no truth to the claim the company systematically underreported injuries, she said, and that Amazon’s expectations for its employees to meet quotas are “safe and reasonable.”

Recently, a Washington state judge dismissed a state health and safety regulators allegations of ergonomic safety violations against the company. In addition, the company said it employs 800,000 front line employees across the country and that the workers interviewed for the investigation represent less that 0.018 percent of its hourly workforce.

Nantel said Project Soteria wasn’t adopted because an internal team reviewing the project found that the work and its findings weren’t valid. Additionally, Project Elderwand was a pilot program to test the impact of microbreaks on musculoskeletal disorders, she said, and found that the intervention was ineffective.

Amazon has been under scrutiny for several years from different outlets. The U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York has been looking into allegations the company underreports worker injuries. In June, the company was fined $5.9 million by the state of California for not complying with state worker protection laws regarding productivity quotas.

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