Shareholders of Amazon want an independent audit of the company’s treatment of workers. A new resolution submitted to the company is seeking a third-party audit and review of the company’s productivity quotas and surveillance practices.
Shareholders of Amazon Want an Independent Audit of the Company’s Treatment of Workers
In regards to the criticization of the working conditions of its workers, a group of shareholders in amazon has filed a resolution asking the company’s board of directors to commission an independent audit precisely on workplace safety and health at the organization. The resolution cited asked for the audit to be conducted with input from the company’s employees and experts in workplace safety and surveillance.
The resolution from the company’s shareholders reads “as Amazon strives to be the earth’s safest place to work, a review is needed of the practices that have made the company a leader in workplace injuries and a target for criticism and regulation. With surveillance and productivity quotas linked to high injury rates, we urge amazon to commission an independent audit of those practices.”
Assuming that Amazon doesn’t challenge the goal, investors will decide on it at the organization’s yearly investor meeting in May.
Mary Beth Gallagher’s Take on the Matter
Mary Beth Gallagher is head of commitment at Domini Impact Investments, which documented the goal. She said Amazon needs to assess its plan of action, just as its high turnover and injury rates.
Gallagher highlighted the various security issues and concerns raised with regards to Amazon work environments during the pandemic, and the passing of six individuals at an Amazon stockroom in Illinois that was struck by a cyclone on December 10th.
In a statement emailed to tech news platform The Verge, Gallagher said that “all incidents have raised serious questions and drawn scrutiny from legislators, regulators, and the public.” She also added that Domini wants the audit to examine “the way in which employee productivity metrics and surveillance contribute to a less safe and stable work environment.”
Amazon Employees Revelation about Workplace Safety and Health
Courtenay Brown, an employee at an Amazon Fresh distribution center in New Jersey and head of workers’ gathering United for Respect, affirmed before Congress on December seventh with regards to work conditions at her office.
She said she sorts up to 50,000 everyday food items for conveyance day by day, stepping all through temperatures as low as less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit. Since the stockroom is understaffed, there are not many freedoms for breaks. Also, she said, laborers are checked from the second they maneuver into the parking area.
Brown recently said before a senate finance subcommittee on fiscal responsibility and economic growth that “if we fall behind in any way during our 11-hour shift, we risk being disciplined. We are pushed to our limit to the point where we can’t even take regular bathroom breaks. Often we have to run to and from the bathroom in under two minutes so we don’t get in trouble.”
Amazons Response to the Matter
The investors need the review to assess the organization’s efficiency shares, surveillance practices, and the impacts of these practices on injury rates and turnover. Amazon didn’t answer to a solicitation for input from The Verge about the proposition.
Gallagher continued to say that her company’s hope and aim is that a thorough evaluation “will produce corporate policy changes that make workplaces safer for associates and cement amazon as the industry in health and safety it states it wants to be.”
