We’ve obtained documents that show that Amazon officials have profoundly misled the public and lawmakers about its record on worker safety. Host Al Letson speaks with Reveal’s Will Evans, who’s been able to gather a trove of confidential data and documents from Amazon that paints a very different picture from what the company says publicly. Listen here.
Illustration by Anthony Zinonos for Reveal
The pandemic has made Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos richer than ever – in a single day in 2020, he added $13 billion to his net worth.
As it’s become the nation’s second-largest private employer, Amazon’s top leaders have fashioned a mythology around its growth, casting Amazon as a force for good. Its obsession with delighting customers fuels a “virtuous cycle,” they say, that ends up benefiting everyone – even Amazon’s more than 250,000 warehouse workers.
In fact, as senators have fired off letters to the company and workers have led walkouts over health and safety, Amazon has engaged in an unapologetic public relations campaign. Robots, Amazon insists, are good for workers. And Prime Day and the holiday rush are so well orchestrated, Amazon has claimed, that injury rates stay flat or even go down during these buying frenzies.
But reporter Will Evans obtained records – including internal safety reports and weekly injury numbers from Amazon’s nationwide network of fulfillment centers – that show that company officials have profoundly misled the public and lawmakers about its record on worker safety.
The data reveal a mounting injury crisis at Amazon warehouses, one that is especially acute at robotic facilities and during Prime week and the holiday peak – and one that Amazon has gone to great lengths to conceal. With weekly data from 2016 through 2019 from more than 150 Amazon warehouses, the records definitively expose the brutal cost to workers of Amazon’s vast shipping empire – and the bald misrepresentations the company has deployed to hide that toll.
We talked with Will about how he was able to report the truth about such a powerful company for his latest investigation: How Amazon hid its safety crisis.
How did you get started on this story?
The first thing I did was reach out to workers and also to former safety managers to get a lay of the land and see if there was something there. I wasn't sure if there would even be a story, but I talked to a bunch of people who said, “Actually, there's a real problem here with injuries.” I can remember one conversation in particular, where the former safety manager said, ”You should see their injury rates, they're out of control.” That sent me on a long journey to try to find that information.
I knew that there was a way to get this data, because each worker has the right to get safety records from their own workplace. So we reached out to hundreds of current and former Amazon workers, and we were able to eventually piece together injury records from 23 different fulfillment centers around the country for that first story.
After that story, sources leaked us a bunch of confidential records, including internal safety reports and weekly injury numbers for more than 150 fulfillment centers around the country. That gave us an opportunity to fact-check claims that the company was making publicly.
And what does your new reporting find?
That what Amazon is telling the public isn’t actually what’s happening. Amazon’s injury rates have been getting worse over the last four years. And the robotic warehouses have especially high injury rates, even though Amazon has been saying robots make the job safer. Injury rates spike around Prime Day and the holidays, even though Amazon has said the opposite. And we talked to medical providers who said they were pressured to deny care to injured workers so Amazon could keep injuries off the books.
Why does it feel important to you to report on Amazon's injury rates?
I've talked to dozens of workers who were injured. This has real, devastating consequences for people. These injuries can lead to a lifetime of pain and financial struggle. It makes you think about what is going on behind that package that comes to your door. The opportunity to hold a company accountable is also motivating for me. When I feel like someone's not telling me the truth, that motivates me to find out what the truth is.
How has this reporting changed your own relationship to Amazon?
As I was reporting that first story, I would be getting deliveries and would notice the warehouse code on the boxes. I would realize, “Wait, I just talked to a guy who works there; he got hurt at the warehouse that delivered this box to my door.” This kept happening; each box that came, I'd look it up. It was an intense feeling. It was a powerful way of bringing it home. It felt disingenuous for me to be talking to the workers who were injured and telling them that I cared about what they were going through, and then going and clicking “buy.” Some of the workers even would say, “I don't shop there anymore because of what that company did to me.” And I'm thinking, “Well, would I want to admit to them that I just bought something there?” That was when we decided to stop using Amazon. We spend more time looking for stuff to get in other ways. I spend time going to local stores, going to the hardware store, going to the bookstore. It is more difficult, but it's doable.
In 2019, Amazon fulfillment centers recorded 14,000 serious injuries, which require days off or job restrictions. The overall rate of 7.7 serious injuries per 100 employees was nearly double the most recent industry standard.
Contrary to Amazon’s public claims, injury rates spike during the busy weeks of Prime Day and Cyber Monday. Those two weeks had the highest rate of serious injuries for all of 2019.
The warehouse with the highest injury rate in the country is in DuPont, Washington. That warehouse had 22 serious injuries for every 100 workers. That’s a rate more than five times higher than the most recent industry average.
“I don't know that the information I'm getting from Amazon is accurate, because mostly Amazon denies that anything is happening and says that there is a vast network of people who are simply reporting on things to make them look bad. I just don’t believe that.”
– U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, whose district includes Amazon’s Seattle headquarters
Field Notes: Deconstructing Amazon
To accompany our latest investigation into Amazon’s safety record, California-based collage artist Anthony Zinonos hand-made collages for the story that alter Amazon’s iconic packaging material. The collages deconstruct the everyday objects, asking the audience to deconstruct and reassemble their understanding of Amazon as well.
Kevinisha Walker is a digital engagement producer at Reveal. She manages Reveal’s social media channels and develops new ways to connect with and expand our audience. You can follow Kevinisha on Twitter: @KevinishaWalker.
Reading: Up until life became hectic for me recently, I was reading Sally Field's autobiography, “In Pieces.” I really like learning about her upbringing and how the women she grew up around impacted who she is today.
Listening: “The Lion King: The Gift” album is over a year old, but I listen to it at least every other day. I love it because Beyoncé executive produced it (I'm a huge fan of Queen Bey) and she collaborated with a number of musicians and singers across Africa.
Watching: I'm rewatching “Girlfriends” on Netflix. I'm having a great time rewatching the show as an adult because when I watched it as a kid, I didn't fully understand what the characters were experiencing when it came to failed romantic relationships and friendship breakdowns.
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Kevinisha Walker is a digital engagement producer at Reveal. She manages Reveal’s social media channels and develops new ways to connect with and expand our audience. You can follow Kevinisha on Twitter: 
