Amazon Execs Refuse 8 Times To Answer British Lawmakers Wondering Why Workers Keep Striking — 'Most Employers Don’t Have To Call An Ambulance 1,400 Times In 5 Years'
According to them, workers are striking simply because they can. It's safety records suggest otherwise.
Zeynep Demir Aslim | Shutterstock Amazon has become notorious for mistreating workers and holding them to untenable workloads — viral videos showing drivers resorting to urinating in empty water bottles because they didn't have time to take breaks became an entire social media trend at one point.
But that was several years ago, and the company has since made quite an effort to at least give the impression that they've changed. Strikes have nevertheless been a constant, especially in the U.K., where the company's executives seemed to indicate in a governmental hearing that they are hiding something.
Amazon execs refused 8 times to answer British lawmakers' questions about why workers keep striking.
The U.K. has been beset by Amazon workers' strikes in recent years over both compensation and working conditions, with its Coventry location being a particular hotspot for worker complaints.
This resulted in a major push toward unionization in 2024 by employees at the Coventry location that narrowly failed — the vote to join the General, Municipal, Boilermakers and Allied Trade Union, or GMB, came down with 49.5% of Coventry employees voting in favor, just .6% of the simple majority needed to approve unionization.
But the allegations made against Amazon by U.K. employees are fairly bracing, ranging from the usual pay complaints to some frankly shocking safety statistics, resulting in the U.K. government calling a hearing in December with Amazon HR executives Jennifer Kearney and Stuart Morgan
To say the hearing went poorly would be an understatement. Asked by Members of Parliament no fewer than eight times, "if Amazon is such a great place to work … why have your team in Coventry gone on strike so much?," Kearney and Morgan squirmed in their seats, stumbled over their words, and fully evaded the question.
The Amazon execs claimed Coventry workers keep striking simply because they can.
Video of the hearing truly is astonishing. It's like watching two robots freeze up because their motherboards have short-circuited. In answer to MP Reynolds's question, Kearney replied, "I think it's important to note that we absolutely support their right to [strike]," which of course is not what was asked.
Reynolds quickly shot back that "I feel like I might need to get lessons from you both at some point on how to not answer the question that was asked directly" before asking it again. "I think they're executing their rights, as we absolutely would protect their ability to do," Kearney replied, before inviting Reynolds to visit the facility.
He then asked a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth. Finally, after seven tries, he gave up — but his colleague MP Antonia Bance refused to do so, pointing out that under British law, workers are required to have a legal reason to strike and must file it on record with their employer.
When Bance demanded to know what this legal reason was, Kearney said she didn't "have the information top of mind, or I can't recall it" and that she would get back to them. Bance then appealed to Morgan, who stammered a reiteration of Kearney's bizarre denial.
U.K. Amazon employees have complained of worker abuses that resulted in more than 1,400 ambulance calls in five years.
The Coventry employees' grievances are well documented, and among them are a raft of shocking safety breaches that in some cases have left workers permanently injured. During the December hearing, another MP, Liam Byrne, grilled Kearney and Morgan about how Amazon had to call an ambulance to its U.K. locations more than 1,400 times in just the past five years.
Kearney and Morgan struggled to account for this too, with Kearney saying "one [safety] incident is too many, so we work actively…to support [employees] and to make sure we're doing everything as safely as possible."
Unsurprisingly, Byrne was unimpressed, and asked how that was possible given shocking incidents like the recent case of a man who permanently lost 80% of his sight because of delays in getting him to the hospital after chemicals spilled in his eyes. The delays were caused by Amazon refusing to call an ambulance because there had been too many ambulance calls at that location already. Morgan and Kearney simply claimed to not be familiar with the case.
Workers now say Amazon is retaliating against employees who tried to unionize.
Since the December hearing, the conflict between Amazon, workers and the U.K. government appears to have escalated. Two weeks ago, the GMB union said 60 workers, all of whom participated in the unionization efforts, have been targets of retaliation by Amazon.
They say Amazon made changes, following the unionization vote, to how it assesses and records "non-productive time," which refers to delays due to equipment failures or meetings, but also bathroom breaks, that have resulted in workers being threatened with termination for breaking these new rules, often without ever being notified they had been changed.
Workers have also said extensive follow-up delays by management on these grievances have meant workers are forced to account for "non-productive time" delays they could often no longer even remember the cause of. GMB senior organizer Amanda Gearing told The Guardian the disciplinary actions are Amazon's way of “clearing out what they see as troublemakers."
Amazon was in hot water with the U.S. government too, after a December Senate probe found the company had lied about worker injury data to cover up its high rate of accidents, which is twice as high as its competitors. That inquiry will of course likely be kiboshed now that the new president, of whom Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is a close ally and major donor, is in office.
Unionization efforts and strikes against Amazon are ongoing in several U.S. locations, and a one-week boycott of the company and all its subsidiaries to protest Bezos' involvement in the current administration has been planned from March 7-14, 2025 by activist organization Peoples Union USA.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.