Holders of Amazon securities have called on the company's board of directors to conduct an independent audit of health and safety in the workplace. The shareholder resolution contains a proposal to verify and evaluate working conditions with the participation of Amazon employees, as well as safety and supervision experts.
If Amazon is going to be the safest place to work, the investor message said that it should pay attention to its strategy, which has made the company a leader in industrial injuries, as well as the target of regulatory criticism. If the company does not agree to approve the resolution, then shareholders will vote for an independent audit at the annual meeting in May.
Mary Beth Gallagher, director of communications for Domini Impact, who presented the document, said the company needs to assess its business model, high turnover and injury rates. She also criticized Amazon executives for the lack of COVID-19 prevention measures for employees, as well as the company's actions during the past hurricane that collapsed a warehouse in Illinois last week.
Gallagher says all of these events have caught the attention of the public, lawmakers and regulators. Shareholders want to find out exactly which production processes reduce stability and safety in the workplace.
Courtney Brown, an Amazon Fresh warehouse worker in New Jersey and United for Respect leader, spoke to the US Congress about the company's working conditions. She said she had to sort 50,000 items a day for delivery in temperatures as low as -23 ° C. Warehouse staff is understaffed and there is little room to take a break, Brown said. Employees are constantly monitored by the company, the activist says.
Amazon is disciplining workers for minor delays during an 11-hour worker, Brown said. She says workers have been pushed to their limits as they don't even have the ability to go to the toilet properly for fear of problems.
Gallagher hopes the audit will lead to better corporate policies that make workplaces safer for employees.
The collapse of a warehouse in Edwardsville killed six company employees. A number of employees have criticized Amazon. They accused the company of neglecting safety regulations and failing to communicate about natural disasters. After the incident in Illinois, the company encrypted incident help messages, making them inaccessible to ordinary employees. Amazon would later say that the information hiding was due to a technical failure.
In the middle of last month, Amazon agreed to pay $ 500 million for inappropriately informing employees about the danger of infection and new cases of COVID-19 personnel. The company will be under the control of regulatory authorities.
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