Is it cynical if it's true?

Yeah, but they said that their warehouses were like super safe, and like why would they lie?

Oh, right.

Above: a typical day at an
Amazon fulfilment center.

An eighteen month Senate investigation chaired by Bernie Sanders found that the rate of worker injuries at Amazon is twice that of the industry average. Evidently, the company's Dickensian warehouses where workers frantically rush to fulfill orders are veritable death traps--or at least injury traps--where safety procedures are routinely ignored. Then, when someone is injured, company representatives pressure them return to work before they're fully recovered. Which, super.

The report is pretty damning. Or at least the summary is. I don't get paid for this you know. The committee conducted a hundred and thirty-five interviews, collected first hand accounts, and documents from hundreds of workers, and it all paints a picture both horrifying yet, you know, on-brand for the company. 

"Oh-wee-ohh-wee-oooo-ohhh."

-An Amazon worker who

preferred to stay anonymous

"But your honor, people should be
grateful that they even have a job."

-Amazon's lawyer

Amazon, for their part, is disputing the findings. In a statement hilariously attributed to "Amazon Staff," the company portrays itself as a tireless champion both of worker safety and customer satisfaction, which is a bold claim from a company famous for having to be pressured into giving their employees enough time to use the bathroom. And for a company which is also trying to get the courts to rule that the National Labor Relations Board is unconstitutional and always has been. I guess their contention is that no one has noticed in the past ninety years.

Pictured: Sanders at Biden's inauguration.
Remember? Back when we had hope? Fun.

Now, I should be upfront and say that in addition to working in a bookstore, an industry Amazon specifically set out to destroy first before moving on to gutting brick and mortal retail in America, I've also become increasingly skeptical of corporations in general over my forty-some years of life. In my view, ours is a bleak, hyper capitalist wasteland. so to some extent when I read a story like this, one that aligns so easily with my worldview, I'm inclined to believe it. I'm biased. I have no trouble believing that Senator Sanders is on to something here. 

To be clear, you have to
provide your own bag.

But biases don't mean that the committee isn't correct, or that we need to give the company that popularized poop bags for their drivers the benefit of the doubt. Of course the committee's findings are real, and of course Amazon is putting profit ahead of people. Milton Friedman, noted economist and cause of everything wrong with everything, argued that corporations have a social responsibility to increase its profit, and that's it. So Amazon will keep doing what they're doing it until they're forced to stop either through government action or until public disgust makes it unprofitable to continue. 

Basically they'll keep doing it forever. You see, the incoming administration is almost certainly going to be on team poop bag, so government action seems unlikely. And America is addicted to free shipping despite the fact that it's in no way free, so a boycott is equally out of the question. Cynical? Maybe. But not wrong.

What? It's not free. It's called Prime and it's $135 year.
Amazon's not your friend, it's your dealer.