Amazon Prime Day a ‘major cause’ of injuries: Sanders

With Amazon Prime Day in full swing, a report released this week by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, claims the two-day promotional event is a “major cause of injuries” for workers at the retailer’s warehouses.

The interim report from the senator accuses Amazon of understaffing its warehouses during peak shopping periods, including Prime Day, and “endangering workers who have to manage increased volume without increased support.”

“Amazon warehouses are especially unsafe during Prime Day and the holiday season — and the company knows it,” the report states.

The interim report, released Monday, is the result of a year-long investigation into safety protocols at Amazon’s warehouses. According to the report, it’s the first time that internal Amazon data about warehouse injury rates, from the years 2019 and 2020, is being made public.

The investigation found nearly 45 out of every 100 warehouse workers — almost half — were injured during Amazon Prime Day in 2019.

That includes minor injuries such as bruises and cuts, as well as more serious injuries like torn rotator cuffs and concussions, according to the report.

“Amazon must be held accountable for the horrendous working conditions at its warehouses and substantially reduce its injury rates,” Sanders, a fierce Amazon critic, said Tuesday in a statement.

In a statement to ABC News, Amazon strongly disputed the report’s findings.

“We’ve cooperated throughout this investigation, including providing thousands of pages of information and documents. But unfortunately, this report (which was not shared with us before publishing) ignores our progress and paints a one-sided, false narrative using only a fraction of the information we’ve provided. It draws sweeping and inaccurate conclusions based on unverified anecdotes, and it misrepresents documents that are several years old and contained factual errors and faulty analysis,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said.

“We carefully plan and staff up for major events, ensure that we have excess capacity across our network, and design our network so that orders are automatically routed to sites that can handle unexpected spikes in volume,” she added.

The report also accused the retail giant of under-recording warehouse injuries by refusing to refer workers to outside medical care — a claim Amazon denies.

“We’re required to report every injury that needs more than basic first aid, and that’s what we do. While any company might make an occasional clerical error, after a nearly six-month investigation that gave OSHA access to all of our internal injury and incident report notes, and closed-door interviews with our associates, OSHA found no intentional, willful or systemic errors in our reporting,” Amazon said.

In its statement, Amazon said it has reduced its recordable incident rate (anything that requires more than basic first aid) in the United States by 28% and significant injuries by 75% since 2019.

Amazon brought in a record $12.7 billion in sales over the two days of its Prime Day event in 2023, according to Adobe Analytics.

The information released Monday comes as part of an ongoing investigation into Amazon’s warehouse safety practices that Sanders launched last June.

Sanders at the time sent a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, which alleged that Amazon’s “quest for profits at all costs has led to unsafe physical environments, intense pressure to work at unsustainable rates, and inadequate medical attention for tens of thousands of Amazon workers every year.”

At the time, Sanders opened a portal to call for Amazon workers to submit their stories about their time at the company to help in investigations.