Letter to Andy Jassy, President and CEO of Amazon and Jeffrey Bezos, Executive Chair of Amazon - Brown Demands Answers From Amazon on Labor Practices, Asks Department of Labor to Investigate

Dear Mr. Jassy and Mr. Bezos:

We are writing to express our grave concern regarding Amazon's anti-worker policies that prioritize profits over worker safety, and appear to have contributed to the tragic deaths of six workers at your Edwardsville, Illinois, warehouse on December 10, 2021. These workers, including two constituents of Rep. Bush, were killed when an Amazon warehouse collapsed and trapped them inside during the December 10th tornadoes that stretched across six states. We have heard alarming reports about the events that took place in the warehouse moments prior to the tragedy, and these reports fit a larger pattern: Amazon puts worker safety at risk in everyday situations and emergencies alike. As we work to ensure that tragedies such as this one are not repeated, we seek answers about what happened at your Edwardsville warehouse and whether your policies may have contributed to this tragedy.

The December 10, 2021 Tragedy

Reporting on the events on and leading up to the tragedy on December 10, 2021, raises serious concerns about Amazon's worker safety policies. The National Weather Service issued a tornado warning for the Edwardsville, Illinois, area 36 hours before the tornado touched down. Despite the Edwardsville Amazon warehouse being in FEMA's highest tornado risk area, Wind Zone IV, it is not clear whether Amazon gave any advance instructions to workers on December 10, 2021, or provided them with flexibility to remain safely sheltered at home.

At least one Amazon driver appears to have been instructed by dispatch to "keep driving" because "we can't just call people back for a warning unless Amazon tells us to do so," and informed less than 50 minutes before the tornado touched down that if she did stop, it "won't be viewed as for your own safety" and "will ultimately end with you not having a job come tomorrow." Although Amazon has often discouraged and even banned workers from having personal phones in the warehouse, at least one worker texted his partner that Amazon workers were instructed not to leave the facility to seek safer shelter in advance of the tornado.

When the 155 miles per hour winds struck the facility, both sides of the warehouse collapsed and its roof caved in, raising questions about whether the facility met appropriate building standards. The Edwardsville Amazon facility was reported to have been undergoing a shift change when the tornado touched down. Some workers reported being directed to shelter in place in the facility's bathrooms where one person died, while other workers sheltered in place in another part of the building where most of the fatalities occurred.

In the meantime, activity (or lack thereof) on the company's internal message board during the storm "revealed a communication breakdown in which corporate failed to notify employees about the tornado even as it happened." Amazon's reliance on seasonal workers and contractors also appears to have complicated rescue efforts. The Edwardsville police chief stated that the authorities had "challenges" in knowing "how many people we actually had at that facility at the time because it's not a set staff."

Ultimately, six people died: Austin J. McEwen, DeAndre S. Morrow, Clayton Lynn Cope, Etheria S. Hebb, Larry E. Virden, and Kevin D. Dickey.

In the wake of the tragedy, numerous workers wrote on Amazon's internal message boards and spoke to reporters expressing their concerns about inadequate workplace safety practices. One worker at an Indiana facility questioned why his facility did not have tornado drills like it does fire drills. Another worker who has worked for the company for six and a half years wrote that they have never been involved in a tornado safety drill, and have not taken part in a fire drill in about two years. When an employee in Indiana called for safety drills, a manager told him that "it's difficult to have every shift participate with people on vacation or on different schedules." An outside commentator noted, "The cost of the time to do the drills is also time they are not (moving) the packages" -- in other words, time that they are not making money for Amazon.

Amazon profits should never come at the cost of workers' lives, health, and safety. We welcome the investigation opened by Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) into the collapse of the Edwardsville warehouse, and also have numerous questions of our own regarding this tragedy.

Ongoing Worker Safety Concerns at Amazon

These reports of Amazon's workplace safety failures at the Edwardsville facility are disturbing when considered alone. But they fit all too well with an ongoing, company-wide pattern of worker mistreatment, including neglecting worker safety, shortchanging workers on proper pay and benefits, and employing union-busting tactics towards workers when they have tried to organize for better working conditions.

Amazon has proven time and time again that it views workers as disposable means to achieving greater profits. Amazon earned $21 billion in 2020 alone, and its workers have made founder Jeff Bezos the wealthiest person in the world--with a staggering net worth of $184 billion. In sharp contrast, many of Amazon's employees are forced to subsidize their low wages with government assistance programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid. Mr. Bezos can afford a trip to space, but his employees can't afford a trip to the grocery store or the doctor. Earlier this month, Sen. Warren chaired a hearing of the Fiscal Responsibility and Economic Responsibility Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee, where an Associate at the Amazon Avenel, NJ Fulfillment Center testified about the horrific work conditions at the facility:

The job I do is a much-needed service, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic began. As a Process Guide, I'm in charge of sorting 35,000 to 50,000 groceries daily for delivery to homes in New York City and New Jersey. I'm in and out of our cooler constantly, stepping in and out of temperatures as low as negative 10 degrees, and picking up and setting packages down with little to no rest. The work
that I do is supposed to be done with 30 to 40 people, but we operate with 25 people or less every day. Because our work is so essential and our workload has increased, we need more hands on deck, not less, so that we can take turns getting breaks and getting the much-needed rest. But Amazon can barely retain its workers.

Amazon's multi-billion-dollar wealth is made possible by offering anywhere from same-day delivery to two-day delivery, and the corporation has achieved this speed and scale through their sheer brutality -- watching, timing, and punishing associates like me and my coworkers for not working fast enough and allowing associates to take time off to adequately recover, rest, and to prevent burn out.

From the moment we pull into the parking lot we are monitored, and that's through every step through the facility that we take. And if we fall behind in any way during our 11-hour shift, we risk being disciplined or even losing our jobs. We are pushed to our limit to the point where we can't even take regular bathroom breaks. Often we have to run to and from the bathroom in under two minutes so we don't get in trouble. On top of that, the bathrooms are usually pretty gross, and they're usually broken too.

The constant pressure and surveillance is why Amazon has twice the level of injuries and turnover compared to similar jobs. And research has shown that workplace injury rates are higher at Amazon facilities with more robotic and automated technology. I used to be a trainer, and I saw firsthand how, out of 50 new hires, only five would make it to the one- or two-month mark, and many quit soon after due to injuries or over-exhaustion.

We are living in a country where machines are getting better treatment than people. The machines at my facility undergo routine maintenance checks to ensure that they don't burn out.

Yet the one time I needed time off to be with my family to recover from my mother's passing back in September, I was only given two days to do so. Two days to plan a funeral and process my mother's death. And so I ended up taking a month off of unpaid time, which was the only option I had at the time, and this unpaid time was only because there was a reduction in the amount of work we had. And my sister, she wasn't as lucky because she also works with me as well, and she had to literally work the day of her death, as well as the day after, come to her funeral, and then return to work two days later. So her entire funeral was literally scheduled around me and my sister's work schedule. Imagine we went through that while Jeff Bezos made $75 billion last year thanks to me and my coworkers.

Amazon's high-tech sweatshop caused me to develop plantar fasciitis and tendonitis -- a debilitating pain in my heel and ankles -- because I'm having to stand for long periods of time at work with little to no rest. There was once where the pain was so severe that I ended up in the emergency room, and because I was homeless at the time and didn't have enough time to take off, I had to beg the doctors and nurses to see me as quick as possible because I couldn't afford to lose my job and the opportunity I had as becoming leadership.

This kind of exploitation isn't just happening to me -- people have been working through the pandemic non-stop because Amazon won't let us take time off. Often we are so exhausted we break down and cry. And a worker of mine had to stop breastfeeding her child early due not receiving the support when she had to pump at work. This is the type of work environment Amazon is perpetuating across the country.

With atrocious conditions for workers, including constant surveillance and intolerance for bathroom breaks during grueling, 11-hour shifts, Amazon literally grinds down the bodies of its workers to generate faster delivery times and greater market share. Many of these workers are women and people of color, with few other options to provide for their families.

These are just the everyday costs of Amazon's inhumane business model. As the Edwardsville tragedy shows, the stakes are even higher in emergencies, and unfortunately the events of December 10th were not an isolated event for Amazon. At the height of the pandemic, between March 2020 and October 2020, at least 20,000 Amazon employees tested positive for coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19). Despite the enormous risk to life and health, Amazon workers across the country were forced to return back to warehouse settings under threat of job loss. Amazon appears to expect workers to clock in no matter what, even during extreme weather events, and its high worker turnover also likely contributes to confusion and unpreparedness in emergency situations. Unfortunately, as we suffer the increasing effects of climate change, these kinds of policies will only become more harmful.

For example, Amazon warehouses remained open during Hurricane Ida in September 2021, even as the storm caused widespread flooding that led to 14 deaths in New York. Amazon drivers reported delivering packages through floodwaters during Hurricane Irma in 2017. During the deadliest wildfires in California history in 2018, an Amazon warehouse ignored city-wide air quality warnings for two days before it sent its workers home. During this summer's extreme heat in the Pacific Northwest, Amazon workers were expected to report for duty during a heat wave deemed a mass casualty event. Some workers complained of having to work in areas of Amazon warehouses that lacked fans and reached temperatures of 90 degrees. New York Attorney General Letitia James also filed a lawsuit against Amazon earlier this year for its failure to provide adequate health and safety measures for employees during the pandemic, and for retaliating against multiple whistleblowers. During the pandemic, Amazon's broken HR systems have mishandled paid and unpaid leave, punishing workers as they are also dealing with medical problems and other emergencies.

These previous instances of Amazon's negligence during natural disasters, extreme weather, and a pandemic are consistent with the reports of company officials' inaction during the December 10th tornado. The company ignored a 36 hour advance tornado warning, and six workers lost their lives -- an unacceptable cost of Amazon's insatiable drive for profits.

In this context, we are deeply concerned that Amazon is considering reintroducing its mobile phone ban. Workers need access to their phones in case of emergencies, from natural disasters from tornadoes to family emergencies. Preventing warehouse workers from carrying their phones during 11-hour shifts with inhumanely limited breaks is dangerous.

In addition, on the night of December 10th, Amazon workers in Edwardsville were placed in harm's way because they worked in a warehouse that was a far cry from the gleaming headquarters that the company keeps in Seattle, Washington. The tilt-up construction method used in warehouses describes steel-reinforced concrete walls that are poured flat and raised into position. If these walls are not connected strongly to the roof, the walls will cave in and drop tens of thousands of pounds on occupants inside. Amazon has 5 million square feet of warehouse space across about a dozen facilities in the St. Louis metro area that are not suited for resisting tornadoes. In 2018, two Amazon contractors were killed in a partial collapse of an Amazon warehouse in Southeast Baltimore during a tornado. Questionable warehouse safety measures, combined with inadequate physical protection from the natural environment, continue to threaten the lives of Amazon workers in this region.

Amazon's Anti-Union Efforts

Unsurprisingly given these terrible working conditions, Amazon workers have sought to organize. In response, Amazon has spent huge amounts of money on anti-union campaigns and fought tooth and nail to ensure that each worker continues to have to negotiate alone against a trillion-dollar company. You have embraced employee surveillance technology as a way to track employee activism, mandatory overtime, and so-called "labor organizing threats" in the workplace, and fired workers who blew the whistle on safety concerns at Amazon warehouses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recently, the National Labor Relations Board authorized a new union election at your Bessemer, Alabama, facility after the agency's finding that you intimidated workers and interfered in the union election.

Meanwhile, in addition to appearing to complicate rescue efforts in the Edwardsville tragedy, Amazon's reliance on contractors is part of a larger problem of worker misclassification aimed at maintaining poor worker treatment and stopping workers from organizing. Independent contractors do not receive the same legal protections as employees, including the right to unionize, minimum wage, paid leave, and health and safety protections. Because these contractors are paid per completion of a delivery route, not by the hour, Amazon can more easily avoid paying them overtime and offering them employee benefits. Additionally, Amazon relies on Delivery Service Partners -- franchise companies that are small subcontracted package delivery firms -- that are considered "independent" from Amazon, though they exclusively deliver for Amazon Prime customers.

We are working to pass the Protecting the Right to Organize Act precisely to end such unacceptable anti-union practices. The events of December 10th are a sobering reminder of how dangerous it is when workers are denied collective bargaining power.

Amazon has an unacceptable and ongoing history of compromising worker safety, retaliating against whistleblowers, and anti-union campaigning. In order to understand how your company's policies and actions may have contributed to the tragedy at the Edwardsville facility this month, and the extent to which these problems may reveal systemic problems with Amazon's treatment of workers, we ask that you provide answers to the following questions no later than January 3, 2022.

1. What was the worker structure at the Edwardsville warehouse in December 2021?
a. How many workers at the warehouse were Amazon employees?
i. What is the median time that these employees had been working for the company?
ii. What percentage are part-time versus full-time workers?
b. How many workers at the warehouse were contractors?
c. How many workers worked for Delivery Service Partners?

2. What internal communication took place between Amazon (corporate) and Amazon workers and franchise company workers in your Edwardsville warehouse on December 9 and 10, 2021?
a. How did you communicate with workers, contractors, and franchises?
b. Did Amazon require workers in the Edwardsville warehouse to remain at work despite the issuance of the tornado warning?
c. Did you provide any guidance or flexibility to workers and contractors regarding not coming into work or leaving work early given the tornado warning?
d. Did workers from the Edwardsville warehouse ask permission from their supervisors to go home? If so, what was the response?
e. Were franchise shipping companies directed or given flexibility to stop -- or told to continue -- pickups from the Edwardsville warehouse?

3. What are your policies on fire, tornado, and severe weather safety at your warehouses?
a. What specific, formal tornado safety protocols were in place at the Edwardsville facility?
b. Were all of these protocols followed during the December 10 tornado?
c. How often are safety drills performed?
d. When were the last fire, tornado, and severe weather drills performed at the Edwardsville warehouse?
e. What is the impact of your company's high worker turnover on ensuring these trainings are up to date for all workers? How do you ensure that all workers receive these trainings?
f. Were the company's safety practices and standards regarding tornado safety modified in any way after the 2018 Baltimore tornado?

4. What is your current policy on warehouse workers having personal phones with them during their shift? What are your future plans on this topic?

5. What wind-related building code standards did the Edwardsville warehouse meet?
a. Did the warehouse have a "hardened" safe room that could withstand tornado winds and protect workers from falling debris?
b. If so, how many workers could fit in the safe room? Was the safe room used during the December 10 tornado?
c. Were Amazon's building-related standards regarding tornado safety modified in any way after the 2018 Baltimore tornado?

6. What support is Amazon providing families of the dead and injured workers, and workers who are no longer able to work at the Edwardsville facility?

7. How are you ensuring that Amazon workers who cannot get to work at other facilities due to tornado damage are not punished for that, especially given numerous issues with employment and human relations systems?

In addition, please provide the following documents.

1. A full list of Amazon workers who have died on site in the past 10 years, accompanied by explanations of how each worker died.

2. Any records of communications from warehouse managers to warehouse workers in Edwardsville from December 10, 11, and 12.

3. Copies of all company emails sent in the course of dealing with this disaster on December 10, 11, and 12.

4. A full organizational chart of Amazon's Edwardsville warehouse.

5. Copies of any employee/worker handbook for the Edwardsville warehouse (as was in effect on December 10).

6. Copies of any management protocol and/or manuals, etc. for the Edwardsville warehouse (as was in effect on December 10).

As the second-largest private employer in the United States, it is not enough for Amazon to just create jobs. Amazon has a responsibility to its workforce to create safe, dependable jobs with livable wages that do not cost people their lives, health, and well-being.

Sincerely,

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