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Reveal

A Reckoning at Amazon

Reveal

The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

News

4.7 • 8K Ratings

🗓️ 26 November 2022

⏱️ 52 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After years of growth, Amazon is now laying off thousands of employees. But with the holiday season underway, the company’s warehouse workers still have to race to fill gift orders. This week, Reveal revisits Amazon’s safety record.

Host Al Letson speaks with Reveal’s Will Evans, who’s been reporting on injuries at Amazon for years. By gathering injury data and speaking with workers and whistleblowers, he has shown that Amazon warehouse employees are injured on the job at a higher rate than at other companies. Evans’ reporting has focused national attention on the company’s safety record, prompting regulators, lawmakers and the company itself to address the issue more closely. This November, members of Congress scrutinized Amazon’s working conditions—and at the state level, lawmakers and safety regulators are taking action against Amazon in ways they never have before.

Then, we bring back a story by Jennifer Gollan that looks at the most common type of injury at Amazon and other workplaces, repetitive motion injuries. Gollan reports that decades ago, the federal government decided to impose safety regulations to try and prevent these injuries, then abruptly changed its mind.

We end with a reprise of a story from reporter Laura Sydell about online reviews of products and businesses and how many of them are not what they seem.

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for this podcast comes from WISE, the universal account that lets you send, spend,

0:06.0

and receive money internationally.

0:08.0

This one account for over 50 currencies, who exactly is WISE made for?

0:12.6

It's made for Austrians and Australia.

0:14.7

South Africans and Sweden.

0:16.3

It's made for New Delhi, New York, and even regular York.

0:19.5

When you use WISE to manage your money across borders, you always get the mid-market exchange

0:23.7

rate with no markups and no hidden fees.

0:27.1

You can send 13 million customers and learn how the WISE account could work for you at

0:31.7

WISE.com slash reveal.

0:39.0

From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is reveal.

0:43.0

I'm Al Letson.

0:44.8

Back in spring 2020, it was early in the pandemic, but COVID-19 was already infiltrating Amazon's

0:51.6

warehouses.

0:52.6

And as business boomed, many workers felt the company wasn't protecting them.

1:00.4

At another warehouse in New York, some workers walked out and protested the company's response

1:05.5

to the pandemic.

1:07.0

Chris Smalls sent out a text announcing the protest will take place in Amazon's Staten

1:11.4

Island facility.

1:12.4

Smalls has called for the company to halt operations because of the pandemic.

1:17.5

The organizer of that walk out, Chris Smalls, was fired.

1:20.6

When Amazon didn't halt operations, it went on to make record profits during the pandemic

...

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