03: Amazon’s Dangerous Working Conditions

Amazon warehouses. In episode one, we spoke about how people were getting injured due to unsafe working environments. Well after that aired, I got a message from a contact of mine who currently work as an Amazon employee on the warehouse floor in a warehouse somewhere in America. Now he still works there, so he doesn't want to kind of give his identity out, so we would just call him Jim.

Here's what Jim had to say. Those injury statistics. There's just no way that those statistics are accurate, um, even though they're really really bad. Because um, one of the worst things that can help in at Amazon is for you to report an injury. Because if you reported the injury, your manager has to fill out a form and then

you go to the on site or infirmary. Um, and then they make you sit down and then they fill out of report and then HR is gonna get ahold of you, and then it turns into a thing where, um, they really don't want a worker's compensation claim. So UM.

It actually just happened to me today where I was limping because I have a really bad blistered foot from working on Black Friday, and one of my co workers actually told my manager, uh, and it wasn't cool because I didn't want I was like, this is how bad it is an Amazon where I was upset that Uh. My coworkers said that I was hurt because I just didn't want to go through the process. And all I had to tell my manager was I don't want to go to am care, which is that's all you got

to say. Am Care is the Amazon carrots. It's the thing where they started investigating you. Um, and I just don't want to go through that at I don't want to be sent home, I don't want to have to deal with, uh, the investigation. I don't want to be harassed by the company. So um, nobody wants to report those things and we have a general understanding that things like, oh, he wasn't social distancing enough, or he was late to

work consistently or something like that. They use bullshit excuses to fire people for reasons that they don't want to get in trouble for, which is why the best thing for an Amazon employee is to have nobody talk to you. I got hired on my first three four months. I didn't talk to a single human being. I signed on and I signed into the scanner, and then I just followed the algorithm and it told me where to go.

Uh And that was when I was sucked with the least nobody said anything to me by my stotistics or anything like that. So, um, it's kind of one of those things where if you stand up for yourself or if you make your concerns known, they will catch you somehow, some way. I think it's really sad there how Jim just says they will catch you somehow, some way, as

if that's a sort of normal thing to be saying. Personally, I couldn't imagine working in the sort of environment that has employees hiding injuries so that they don't get fired or singled out. I've worked in a lot of warehouse jobs, before I became a reporter. Before I was a journalist, I worked in warehouses. I worked on building sites as

a laborer. I've done a lot of stuff like that, and I've never actually experienced something that bad where it's like, no, I better hide this injury because I don't want to get in trouble. That's kind of sucked up now. Jim is only one guy, but I do trust him. He's even sent me images of injuries he's sustained at Amazon. But I thought, you know what, let's have a look at the real environment of health and safety at Amazon

to see what's really going on here. So just last year, in twenty twenty, the UK's GMB trade union obtained figures that showed injury rates weren't improving at more than fifty of the country's Amazon warehouses. GMB used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the figures that showed the dire situation of warehouse safety. In fact, as sited in a Guardian article by Rob Davies, in the three years leading up to twenty, more than six hundred Amazon workers have

been seriously injured at UK warehouses. That's an average of two hundred plus Amazon workers a year sustaining what's classed a serious injury in the workplace in the UK. The numbers speak for themselves. The annual total of Amazon ware house injuries was one hundred and fifty two in the years twenty sixteen to twenties seventeen. It went up to two hundred thirty in eighteen, and then up again to

two hundred and forty in twenty nineteen. Now, there's something in this article that further corroborates what Jim told us. It talks about how there was an accident at an Amazon warehouse in fifteen. Basically, somebody drove a forkliff truck backwards into a steel structure in a warehouse, knocking some of it down. A report into the incident concluded that the driver had had elapsed in concentration due to quote long working hours, something we've heard a lot about already

in this series. Now, the article then goes on to say this quote. Internal emails from the Health and Safety executive show that the accident was reported by an Amazon worker who would not give their name because they were worried about getting sacked. End quote. Now, if you're not familiar with UK vernacular, getting sacked means getting fired, you lose your job. So it seems what Jim told us that the start has been going on for a while now,

not just in specific warehouses. I mean that stretches from a UK warehouse in fifteen to a US warehouse in one. Remember, Jim said he thinks the official figures, which are very high anyway, for injuries at Amazon warehouses, are too low because he said, people are worried that if they report an accident or an injury, they might lose their job. Even so, these the two sticks for Amazon warehouse injuries

in the US are very high anyway. You've spent the better part of a year investigating Amazon and its warehouse conditions. What did you find? We found that they're they're injuring a tremendous amount of people. These are extremely high injury rates. The reason behind us is just how fast these warehouses move, how fast the workers are acquired to move. They're injuring a tremendous amount of people. So let's look at the

numbers again. Twenty twenty one study by these Strategic Organizing Center the s o C shows that workers are more likely to be injured Amazon warehouses than in any other warehouse in that industry. There also more likely to be injured more frequently Amazon warehouses, and even more severely. So basically, if you work in warehouses for a living, you are way more likely to catch a severe injury working for

Amazon the any of their competitors. The data shows that Amazon workers had five point nine serious injuries per on people. For context, that's almost higher than other warehouses in the industry. Not only that, due to how bad the injuries sustained at Amazon warehouses are, the s OC discovered that Amazon workers also took longer to recover than others in their

same industry. In the report, they say, quote in Amazon workers who experienced lost time injuries were forced off of work for an average of forty six point three days, more than a month and a half. This is a week longer than the average recovery time for workers injured in the general warehouse industry, and more than two weeks longer than the recovery time for the average worker who suffered a lost time injury. End quote. So both lee, if you work for Amazon, you're more likely to get

funked up in the warehouse. It's more likely to be a bad injury and you're more likely to have to take more time off than any other warehouse to recover from it. The data shows that Amazon's injury rates are actually more than twice as bad as their strongest competitor, Walmart. With that in mind, let's hear what Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos signed off with In his twenty one a letter to his shareholders, Basos left on a very Bezos like note.

He quotes a passage from a Richard Dawkins book that reads, in part, staving off death is something that you have to work at. Staving off death is something you have to work at. After going through all those numbers, ironically enough sounds to me that you might even meet your death whilst trying to work very hard to stave off your death an Amazon where house. But anyway, let's hear what else he had to say. He blamed the media

for misrepresenting their employees as desperate souls. Are being treated like robots, he says, and I according again here, that's just not accurate. So apparently, according to Jeff Bezos, the real issues at Amazon, the reporters aren't being accurate anyway. Not only are people at risk of injury due to overwork in the Amazon warehouse. They're also at risk due

to Amazon's lack of adequate weather provisions. In the summer of this year, one Amazon workers at New York's Staten Island Warehouse had to be carried out of the building on stretches due to the extreme heat from a summer heat wave. As reported by independent news outlet Status Coup, Amazon workers began to faint inside the warehouse, which is

roughly the size of fifteen football pitches. Imagine how much he has to gather in a place that big to make it so hot that workers actually start to faint. Ambulances were cooled and people were stretched out of the building, but Amazon didn't shut down the warehouse. Instead, they gave them cheap portable funds, as if that would do anything.

As the workers sweltered in the warehouse, employees in the offices sat there with the air con When workers would walk over to HRS officers where the executives were to complain, those HR officials would have perfectly working air conditioning, and in many cases they would be wearing hoodiess because it

was actually cold in their corner at the warehouse. That's the voice of Jordan's Cheriton, the reporter who wrote this status coup article about Amazon workers fainting in the Staten Island warehouse, and inside the warehouse they're Amazon claims that there is a central air conditioner, but if there is, it's certainly not working. So on the ground floor workers have told me as soon as they got in there

basically soaking wet from the heat inside the warehouse. And when you move up to the second, third, fourth floors of the warehouse it gets even hotter as heat rises. So I've seen videos just on in one day of four ambulance visits to Amazon. So it's a mixture of just sweltering heat. To corroborate all these status could obtained some of the internal complaints made at this time to the Amazon HR department from various different warehouse workers. Let's

have a read Edison quote. If there's another oppressive heat wave like ninety or one degrees fahren high outside, will the facility be cool enough to work? End quote? Dana quote is still ways you hot even with the station fans? How is the system working properly? If internal temperatures a seventy to eighty degrees Please look into this until it's fixed properly and comfortable. End quote. Natalie quote, multiple water stations were out of water today. Many of the vending

machines don't work. They take your money, though. The ice machines are always broken. If you had more consideration for your workers, these machines will be checked maintained more often. It would be greatly appreciated. End quote. It's clear from all this that the employees were in danger due to Amazon's inconsiderate working conditions, even when there's a summer heat wave. But remember what Bezo said, off depth is something that you have to work at. No. Let's check back in

with Jim. You remember Jim from the start of the episode. He'd hurt his foot at Amazon, and he was telling us that he feels workers are scared to report workplace injuries to Amazon for fear that they might lose their job. Obviously, Amazon doesn't fire them directly for getting injured, but as we heard from Jim earlier, he feels, as do other people that I've spoken to, that Amazon will find an excuse to get rid of you if you do hurt yourself.

So I kept in contact with Jim to see how his injury was going, and Eventually it got to a point where he said, yeah, okay, he's gonna check himself into am Care and Care is Amazon's on site emergency clinic for workers. Now he found that after reporting into am Care telling them he had been injured at work, he found himself hounded by the managers. Now, maybe they just wanted to keep a real eye on him to make sure he was feeling better, but I don't think so.

Here's what he had to say. So today, after every break, I had a manager asking me about my am care case and tell me to go talk to am care, uh to at least check in, even if I wanted to keep the case open all about the injury. So eventually, around four o'clock after like the third manager talked to me.

And by the way, the way that the managers talk to you, it's very like agent Smith in the matrix because they it's never the same manager, and and like just like when they discipline you, it's always a manager that you don't typically see. Like they'll send you from they'll send you a manager from a different department because they don't want the manager that you talked to every day. And it's just supposed to build a positive relationship with

to be the manager that punishes you. So the managers kind of just appeared out of nowhere, like like, okay, you're talking to me now, and never were reminding me to go talk to am Care about this injury case. So I finally went to am Care. Uh, and I said, and I'm good with closing the case now. My managers have helped me to accommodate and adjust to the situation and I'll deal with it now. Um. And she goes, oh, okay, Uh, so you want to close the case. I said, yeah,

I want to close the case. I'm going to go talk to a doctor on my own time. And she goes, oh, if you're going to go talk to a doctor, then we got to proceed with the workers compensation claim. And I said, no, we're going to close the am Care case. And at this point, I am no longer comfortable sharing further medical information with Amazon. I could tell with like the doctor thing, she was like she was giving up

to fight. She's like, Okay, so you're gonna go talk to your doctor and get a note, and and we're gonna have our notes and we're gonna have all this conversation here like like you could hear it in her voice. I could tell she was just probing for more information and she was just building a case that gainst the situation. So, as I said before, Jim is just one of several Amazon workers I've spoken to for Mega Corps so far. Bob known Jim for a while and I do trust him.

He showed me photos of the forms, the injuries, and his work system, all sorts. With that said, I think it's clear here that as far as Jim is concerned, the managers at Amazon were more worried about having to compensate Jim for his injury than the fact he was injured at all. One last thing that I found funny here from Jim, I asked for a copy of the form, and the copying machine was broken. So that probably tells you how many other people are worried about protecting their

rights when they come through the door. But of course the copy of machine was broken. Either way, Jim took a photo of the form and he showed me it. It's nothing interesting, but for the sake of transparency, it says the following. After careful consideration, I Jim requesting that my case with am Care be closed. This includes any ongoing care slash first aid and scheduled follow ups. I certify that I am making this request voluntarily, and I am doing so by my own choice, without duress or

undue influence of any kind. I understand that this request does not impact my ability to return to am Care if my injury should begin to affect me again, or should I have another injury or illness. I understand I am free to return to am Care for treatment at any point in time. Then there's the associate signature, and then the day, which was fairly recently. Now that's just one example. Jim didn't hurt himself too badly, and he decided, right, he'll deal with this outside of Amazon, will go and

talk to his doctor. But I think the most interesting thing about that last thing he said is that his manager seemed to be gearing up for some kind of argument when he mentioned he was going to go to his own doctor. It's like they wanted to settle everything in house, so does not have to compensate Jim monetarily for his injury at work in the Amazon warehouse. But like I said, this is just an example. Make of it what you will. Now, whilst I was editing this episode,

something truly awful happened. An Amazon warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, in the US collapsed due to storms and a tornado. The roof caved in around eight thirty at night on December. So far, at least six people have died and there were many still missing, all presumed dead. Also, they were all Amazon workers. They were Austin J. McEwen twenty six, DeAndre S. Morrow, Kevin D. Dickey sixty two, Clayton Lynn Cope,

Ethery s Heab t four and Larry E. Verdon. Now let me be clear, I am, of course not blaming Amazon for their deaths. Amazon is, of course not responsible for a shock tornado. In a statement of the press, they said the following quote, We're deeply saddened by the news that members of our Amazon family passed away as a result of the storm in Edwardsville, Illinois. Our thoughts and prayers with the victims, their loved ones, and everyone impacted by the tornado. We also want to thank all

the first responders for their ongoing efforts on seen. We're continuing to provide support to our employees and partners in the area. End quote. Now they just said there that they're continuing to give support to their employees. Well are they. As this statement was released, Amazon workers began to talk online.

One worker, Stefan Jose Jones, posted to Facebook saying that Amazon were threatening him with disciplinary for not coming back into work the very next day, even though the police had called off the area because of course there was destruction all over the place due to the fact the warehouse Ruford caved in and six people had just died.

Here's what Stefan Jose Jones wrote on his Facebook page in full quote, I'm on the phone with Amazon E r C and they're telling me I'll be marked as a missing shift, even though the state police just told me to go home. Then he got the nerve to get smart with me and say if I want the points removed, I need to go back to the site and speak to HR. There is no HR or management office. It's buried and the building is surrounded by emergency management

and cops. All I know is they better pay me and relocate us to d l I five or something. The whole weird thing is all week building maintenance and different crews have been in there watching us, doing inspections on the equipment and started hiring for the Safety Committee yesterday end quote. Another Amazon worker, Leslie Campbell, wrote the following on Twitter quote. I'm an Amazon worker in Kentucky. Tornado hit two miles from my house and I physically

couldn't get to work for my shift. The e C team told me that they had no record of tornadoes in Kentucky and couldn't help me with not getting attendance time reduced for today. My house plus many others are still without power, but that pels in comparison to the loss of life and homes that others have gone through in the grand scheme of today, My family and I

were lucky end quote. So before the bodies of six Amazon workers killed in a tragic natural disaster were barely even cold, Amazon told workers that they had to get back to work the very next day. So if you work on Amazon and you work across the street from the collapse building, you are to report to your shift starting at twelve pm tomorrow tomorrow. And they said that they're providing support to their employees and partners in the area.

It doesn't sound like it to me. There's one more thing that I want to mention in regards to the tragedy in Illinois. This came in just as we were ready to publish this episode. Thank you to everyone that sends it to me. This was first reported by more Perfect Union and Excellent platform that's dedicated to building a better environment for all working people. They specialize in getting information out there into the media about various situations with

unions and what have you. They published a text message from Larry Verdon. Remember we mentioned him earlier. He was one of the people who died when the tornado hit the Amazon warehouse. This is a tragic text message that he sent to his girlfriend. It says, quote Larry, well, I will be home after the storm his girlfriend. What do you mean, Larry, Amazon won't let us leave his girlfriend? All it's doing here is lightning? So what are you doing? I hope everything is okay. I love you? End quote.

Of course, Larry never replied. Sadly, he was killed when the roof caved in the Amazon warehouse. He leaves behind four children. Now, there's no more information out there yet regarding what Larry said, saying that Amazon wouldn't let them leave, but as comes in, we will keep you updated. To some this might seem unrelated, but one day after the tragedy at the Amazon warehouse in Illinois, Jeff Bezos launched another one of his Blue Origin rockets into near space.

We'll go into Blue Origin in another episode, but basically it's Jeff's commercial space flight venture. It's something he said when it launched that all Amazon customers and employees paid for I want to think every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all this. Personally, I think it was bad taste not to postpone the flight, considering six of those said employees were just killed under the weight of a collapsing Amazon warehouse as a tornado

tour through it. But that's just me. In the next episode of Mega Corp, we'll be looking into how exactly Jeff Bezos made so much money through Amazon and how he's managed to wrangle it that he paid no corporation tax in the UK last year whilst making a sales income of forty four billion euros in Europe. We'll go over that next week on Megacorp. Megacorp is made by my production company H eleven for cool Zone Media. It's written, researched,

and produced by myself, Jake Hanrahan. It was also produced by Sophie Lichtman. Music is by Some Black, graphics by Adam Doyle and sound engineering by Splicing Block. If you want to get in touch, follow me on social media at Jake Underscore Hanrahan. That's h A n I A h A n m.