Published
December 17, 2024
When the 118th Congress adjourns just before Christmas, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) will yield his gavel as Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP). It would be hard to describe it as a successful tenure, given the lack of legislation passed and the failure to confirm important nominations like the Secretary of Labor or the Chair of the National Labor Relations Board.
Yet, in one area, the Committee has been productive. Namely, launching partisan broadsides against employers the outgoing Chairman dislikes. In a last parting shot, on December 16, Senator Sanders released his latest missive, this time against Amazon. Much like previous reports about the company, this one is full of innuendo, hearsay, and misrepresentations.
For starters, the report relies primarily on interviews with individual workers. To be clear, very few individual workers. The report bases its sweeping conclusions on discussions with just 135 people—0.01% of Amazon’s workforce. Worse, the report treats anecdotes from these interviews as though they were verified facts. Understandably, it would be difficult for HELP committee staff to get out into the field and investigate the allegations made during interviews. But, that being the case, perhaps the report should clarify that its claims are unverified.
The report also seeks to put the worst spin possible on its selected topics. For example, it criticizes Amazon’s description of a decline in injury rates. Amazon has stated, correctly, according to Senator Sanders, that between 2019 and 2023, its recordable injury rate fell by 30%. Instead of celebrating that fact, the report argues that 30% is somehow deceptive because the 2019 number was higher than that of 2017 or 2018. Another way to look at this data is to say that the company saw a rise in injuries prior to 2019 and decided to act — and, in doing so, reduced its injury rate by 30%.
Amazon provides on-site first aid facilities in clinics referred to as AMCARE. These facilities ensure that workers can receive prompt care for injuries. But to Senator Sanders, such quick access to care is part of a nefarious plot to harm workers. The report roundly criticizes AMCARE for providing inadequate treatment. But, as Amazon makes clear, these facilities are not hospitals. They are there to provide basic first aid only.
Further, the report attacks Amazon managers for “review[ing] injury footage and conduct[ing] ‘re-enactments’ as part of a ‘root cause analysis’ of each injury, which entails the site leadership team discussing what happened and how to prevent it from happening again.” This sounds like a responsible approach to preventing future accidents, but to Senator Sanders, it’s actually a scheme to shift blame for injuries onto workers. This allegation is made with zero evidence other than the story of a worker who injured a finger and failed to visit AMCARE for initial treatment.
A final example of the slipshod nature of the report concerns Amazon’s return to work policy. When a worker is injured, they may need to switch jobs while they recover. This is exactly what Amazon does. When a worker returns from an injury, they are matched with tasks that they can perform based on the nature of the injury and the needs of their recovery.
This sounds eminently responsible. But for Senator Sanders, it is once again cause to slander the company. The report makes a big point that while Amazon tries to find duties that fit the needs of the individual, they do not make accommodations to put the employee back in their exact same job. Would Senator Sanders prefer to see a worker with a back injury go back to lifting packages while they recover?
If a position that matches a worker’s needs during recovery is not available, Amazon assigns them to “temporary light duty.” Many workplaces that require physical exertion provide light duty for those who are injured, and it is a better option than telling workers to just stay home. But here, too, Senator Sanders finds something to criticize. The report complains that light duty consists of make-work jobs, although tabulating receipts and cleaning up would seem important functions, and is limited to 180 days.
Given its deep-seated flaws, one wonders why Senator Sanders decided to release this report at all. But, the section titled “Legislative Recommendations” gives the game away. Rather than attempting to produce a comprehensive and credible study that might actually lead to workplace safety improvements, the entire document is actually meant to promote a partisan agenda of bills that the Democrat Senate has refused to pass. Senator Sanders uses the dramatic yet unsubstantiated examples in the report to advocate for a litany of partisan bills like the PRO Act, which is little more than a union wish list of changes to the National Labor Relations Board.
Senator Sanders’ report has little to do with worker safety. Fortunately, it will also do little to move legislation that Congress has already rejected. With his time as Chairman coming to an end, the Senator might have hoped for more.
About the authors
Glenn Spencer
Spencer oversees the Chamber’s work on immigration, retirement security, traditional labor relations, human trafficking, wage hour and worker safety issues, EEOC matters, and state labor and employment law.
