Civil rights groups urge lawmakers to crack down on Amazon’s ‘dangerous’ worker surveillance

Civil rights groups are calling on lawmakers and regulators to crack down on Amazon over its system of monitoring workers’ pace. 

More than 35 civil rights organizations signed a letter Monday urging action. The letter was released the same day of Amazon’s two-day Prime Day sale, which activists have criticized, arguing it increases pressure on workers. 

“It is time for lawmakers and regulators to step-in and end the punitive system of constant surveillance that drives the dangerous pace of work at Amazon,” the groups wrote, according to a copy of the letter shared with The Hill. 

The letter specifically calls for state and federal officials to enact laws that ban surveillance-driven discipline and control to ensure workers are protected from “abusive conditions.” 

The groups are also calling for updates to Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards and enforcement to end practices that track workers’ pace and time off. 

The letter also pushes agencies to investigate Amazon for workplace abuses including injuries, retaliation and discrimination. 

“We demand lawmakers and regulators do everything in their power to end rate and time off task, ensuring Amazon cannot use this punitive system of surveillance to cycle through entire workforces in communities throughout the country,” the letter states. 

Signatories include the anti-Amazon group Athena, Fight for the Future, Free Press, Government Accountability Project and Public Citizen.

Amazon spokesperson Max Gleber defended the company’s workplace policies in a statement to The Hill. 

“Like most companies, we have performance expectations for every Amazon employee and we measure actual performance against those expectations. Associate performance is measured and evaluated over a period of time as we know that a variety of things could impact the ability to meet expectations in any given day or hour,” Gleber said.

Gleber added that Amazon’s scanning devices are used to track inventory, not people. The spokesperson also said the company supports employees taking time off “as they need it.”

On workplace safety, Gleber noted the company invested more than $1 billion in new safety measures in 2020. 

“While any incident is one too many, we are continuously learning and seeing improvements through ergonomics programs, guided exercises at employees’ workstations, mechanical assistance equipment, workstation setup and design, and forklift telematics and guardrails—to name a few,” Gleber added. 

The push comes as the Seattle-based e-commerce giant faces increased scrutiny over its workplace conditions. 

Washington state’s safety regulator determined last month the pace of work at Amazon is a hazard. A citation from the Washington Department of Labor and Industries stated there is a “direct connection between Amazon’s employee monitoring and discipline systems and workplace MSDs [musculoskeletal disorders].”

An Amazon spokesperson told The Seattle Times the company plans to appeal the citation, and said that “nothing is more important than the health and safety of our teams.”

Amid the backlash earlier this month, Amazon announced a $12 million workplace injury initiative in partnership with the national safety council aimed at researching and reducing the most common workplace injuries. The initiative will seek to find “innovative solutions” to prevent musculoskeletal disorders, or injury involving nerves, muscles, joints and other body parts. 

The civil rights groups dismissed the initiative. 

“Amazon announced wellness programs and funding for injury research, but it refuses to do the one thing that would stop widespread injuries: eliminate rate and time off task,” they wrote. 

In addition to the letter, activists are organizing demonstrations across the country on Monday in protest of the Prime Day sale. 

Workers and community members will hold a virtual rally Monday night to advocate for workplace safety at Amazon facilities. The rally will be livestreamed and broadcast on Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’s D.C. home, according to organizers. 

Activists in more than 20 states will also hang banners off of bridges and overpasses protesting Amazon’s workplace conditions. 

Worker organizations, advocates and academics will also hold a Twitter town hall to discuss Amazon’s use of worker surveillance, and Amazon workers and advocates will also join a California assembly member to discuss a proposal aimed at increasing worker safety. 

In response to the planned protests, Gleber said, “This is a series of misleading assertions by misinformed or self-interested groups who are using Amazon’s profile to further their individual causes.”

“Amazon has a strong track record of supporting our people, our customers, and our communities, including providing safe working conditions and a $15 starting wage with great benefits,” Gleber added.