Amazon has been accused of treating staff like robots as it emerged that ambulances had been called out 600 times to the online retailer’s UK warehouses in the past three years.
A Freedom of Information request to ambulance services from the GMB union revealed 115 call-outs to Amazon’s site in Rugeley, near Birmingham, including three relating to pregnancy or maternity problems and three for major trauma.
There were also two call-outs to the site for electric shocks and eight for people who had fallen unconscious. At least 1,800 people work year-round at the Rugeley warehouse and more than 2,000 more can work over the peak Christmas period.
That compares to only eight calls in total to a nearby Tesco warehouse of a similar physical size and where about 1,300 people work, over the same period, according to another FOI request by the union.
Amazon said it was “simply not correct to suggest that we have unsafe working conditions based on this data or on unsubstantiated anecdotes. Requests for ambulance services at our fulfilment centres are predominantly associated with personal health events and are not work related. Nevertheless, ambulance visits at our UK fulfilment centres last year was 0.00001 per worked hour, which is dramatically low.”
A spokesman said that, according to the Health and Safety Executive’s method of reporting injuries, Amazon had 43% fewer injuries on average than other companies conducting transportation and warehousing activities in the UK.
The GMB added that four-fifths of the 200 union members working for the American firm who had responded to a survey said they suffered pain as a result of their workload, with one pregnant woman complaining she had been forced to stand for her entire 10-hour shift.
One woman said to the union: “I told them I could not walk so many miles and I could not pick from low locations. I had a meeting with a safety manager and was also told: ‘It’s not what you want, it is what we decide’.
“My manager told me that most women are working on picking until their maternity leave. I know this is true because I saw ladies with huge bumps picking.”
Another woman said: “I am pregnant and they put me to stand 10 hours without a chair … They are telling me to work hard even they know I am pregnant. I am feeling depressed when I am at work.”
Mick Rix, a GMB national officer, said the union was seeking advice about potential legal action about the physical pressures put on staff by Amazon, many of whom use electronic devices to monitor the speed at which they work. Its findings will be presented at the union’s 101st annual congress in Brighton next week.
Workers have said that the constant pressure to hit performance targets makes it difficult for them to take time out to visit the toilet or get a drink.
Rix said the union had also been told of a woman who suffered a miscarriage while working, which she believed was partly as a result of continuous pressure to hit targets. The incident was discussed in a private briefing with GMB-affiliated MPs in parliament earlier this month.
“Companies like Amazon should be treating staff with respect, not treating them like robots,” Rix said.
“Hundreds of ambulance call-outs, pregnant women telling us they are forced to stand for 10 hours a day, pick, stow, stretch and bend, pull heavy carts and walk miles – even miscarriages and pregnancy issues at work.
“None of these things happen in a safe, happy working environments.”
Amazon said: “We don’t recognise these allegations as an accurate portrayal of activities in our buildings.”
The company said that once it was aware a worker was pregnant it carried out a full risk assessment and would “if necessary consult a doctor”.
“If the employee’s health or that of the unborn child is at risk due to the work that they are employed to do by Amazon, we will vary the employee’s conditions to alleviate all risk or find the employee a suitable alternative role. We will, as a last option, place the employee on full paid sick leave,” Amazon said.
The company added: “While any serious incident is one too many, we learn and improve our programmes, working to prevent future incidents. We are proud of our safety record and thousands of Amazonians work hard every day innovating ways to make it even better.”
The company said it did not monitor toilet breaks and had water stations in place to give workers easy access to water throughout their shifts.
- This article was amended on 1 June 2018 to remove a reference to “electrocution”, which means death by electric shock