FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director
“Workplace conditions at Amazon warehouses are unlikely to change until the company’s logistic business is exposed to real competition from unionized workplaces,” says Ron Knox
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 16, 2024) – Ron Knox, senior researcher and policy advocate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), issued the following statement on the release of the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) report on dangerous workplace conditions at Amazon warehouses:
“The committee’s investigation reaffirms what tens of thousands of workers around the country know intimately: Amazon exploits and abuses the workers who stock shelves and pick packages at its hundreds of warehouses around the country, putting them at extreme risk of injury, in order to expand its power in the logistics industry.
“Amazon spread its dangerous workplace practices to communities across the country on the back of its monopoly e-commerce platform, forcing sellers to use Amazon’s logistics business as the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) monopoly lawsuit against the corporation makes clear.
“Workplace conditions at Amazon warehouses are unlikely to change until the company’s logistic business is exposed to real competition from unionized workplaces at United Parcel Service (UPS) and the United States Postal Service (USPS), whose unionized workers are typically paid more and work under safer conditions than their peers at Amazon. That competition will only happen through breaking up the company and, once and for all, dismantling Amazon’s monopoly flywheel that unfairly props up its logistics business.
“Beyond breakup, Amazon logistics should be required to remain neutral in any unionization efforts at its warehouses and, in locations where workers have voted to unionize, negotiate a contract in good faith.”
For more resources from ILSR on Amazon’s monopoly power, please see:
- How Does Amazon Really Make Its Money?, Wisconsin Public Radio (Stacy Mitchell, May 2024)
- Amazon’s Tollbooth in 2023 (Stacy Mitchell, September 2023)
- How Amazon Exploits and Undermines Small Businesses, and Why Breaking It Up Would Revive American Entrepreneurship (Ron Knox and Stacy Mitchell, June 2021)
- Mapping Amazon’s Logistics Network (Olivia LaVecchia, 2016)
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