Amazon's response to the Warehouse Scandal

There has not been many of a response by amazon spokespersons. Most of the responses haven been denials or dismissals. Below are some responses by amazon spokespeople to the public outcry as well as governmental intervention.

Amazon responded to the investigation, with a spokesperson telling ABC News in a statement: "We’ll of course cooperate with OSHA in their investigation, and we believe it will ultimately show that these concerns are unfounded." 

“We’ve cooperated fully, and the government’s allegations don’t reflect the reality of safety at our sites,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, told CNN in a statement Wednesday. “Over the last several months we’ve demonstrated the extent to which we work every day to mitigate risk and protect our people, and our publicly available data show we’ve reduced injury rates nearly 15% between 2019 and 2021.” 

Nantel said the company looks forward to sharing more information during the appeal process “about the numerous safety innovations, process improvements, and investments we’re making to further reduce injuries.” 

An Amazon spokesperson said the company recently installed guard rails across the dock at JFK8 to eliminate all pedestrian interaction with the PIT lane.

The spokesperson added: “It’s inaccurate to say that our FCs are unsafe and any effort to paint our workplaces as such based on the number of injury recordings is misleading given the size of our workforce. While many companies under-record safety incidents in order to keep their rates low, Amazon does the opposite – we take an aggressive stance on recording injuries no matter how big or small.

“We believe so strongly in the environment provided for fulfillment center employees, including our safety culture, that we offer public tours where anyone can come see for themselves one of our sites and its working conditions first-hand.” 

“It’s a misconception that Amazon has quotas. We do not,” said Heather MacDougall, Amazon’s workplace safety head, at an event with the National Safety Council on Thursday. “We are committed to ensuring that performance expectations and safety operations can coexist.”

Most of these quotes are trying to downplay the severity of the situation and state that they are making strides to improve employee safety. I think most of this is just PR damage control and nothing of real value. I will say that the quote stating they have added guard rails for the PIT lanes is some real change. For the most part the responses have just been "its okay" "we are looking into it" "we have it covered" type responses. For a corporation with the reach and resource like amazon I think most people would hope that they would take care of their own employees. I think that until the fines start to get substantial or these issues get brought to court amazon will continue to put out these responses that don't mean anything. They will continue to keep the same practices because they can get away with it, sometimes their stock prices might did when investors get nervous over the public outcry but for the most part their profits are only going to increase. The society we live it has created such a demand for amazon that for the most part they can get away with anything as long as they fire the occasional executive or pay a small fine to keep the public quiet. 

Several employees have refuted the claims that Amazon cares about the issues much less is doing anything to fix the issues. Some workers have said that in the warehouses there is just some caution tape on the floor to show where the robots drive, and that the put up screens saying they care about worker safety. Workers claim this does little to decrease chance of injury to the workers. 

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/18/tech/amazon-osha-citation/index.html 

https://abcnews.go.com/Business/amazon-warehouses-investigation-federal-prosecutors-department-labor/story?id=87028901

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/05/amazon-workers-protest-unsafe-grueling-conditions-warehouse 

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/03/new-york-passes-bill-targeting-amazon-warehouse-productivity-quotas.html