Amazon is facing prosecution in an Indian court for labour law violations at a major warehouse near the country’s national capital of Delhi.
An inspection was launched after reports emerged of an incident in May, where Amazon workers at the facility, located near Manesar in the state of Haryana, were asked to take verbal pledges not to take breaks, including for drinking water or using the toilet, until they met their targets for the day.
Amazon calls its warehouses “fulfilment centres”.
An internal investigation by the company confirmed that a manager requested such a pledge as part of a “motivational exercise”. Amazon called the incident “unfortunate and isolated” in a letter to India’s Ministry of Labour and Employment in June, stating that disciplinary action had been taken against the manager. Amazon has not specified what action was taken against the executive.
That same month, the local Haryana government conducted a “detailed investigation” through labour inspections at the Amazon warehouse.
Amazon failed to provide workers with the required safety gear and did not maintain proper records, as required by law, at its warehouse. “Tight-fitting clothes are not provided to the female workers on or near the moving machinery,” according to an observation made in the labour inspection report. It is not clear whether safe clothes are provided to male workers.
Working while wearing loose clothing near moving machinery is viewed as a potential occupational safety hazard as it could lead to injuries if clothes get entangled in the machine. Under India’s labour law regulations, workers need to wear tight-fitting clothes while working near moving machinery.
The labour inspection report accused Amazon of not providing employment identity cards to its warehouse workers near Manesar.
The Haryana government took Amazon to a court in the Delhi suburb of Gurugram in June, where it submitted the labour inspection report as evidence to back its case. The judge, Amit Gautam, in an order on July 6, summoned Amazon to be present before the court on October 28. However, the case was adjourned, with the next hearing now slated for December 10.
“We haven’t been provided a copy of the Labour Office’s inspection report and hence cannot comment on it. Also, the matter is now sub-judice, so we cannot comment on other attributes of the Court filings noted in your inquiry,” an Amazon spokesperson said.
Amazon employs 1.5 million workers globally, including more than 100,000 people in India, from blue-collar workers deployed for warehouse packaging and delivery drivers to executives managing sales and marketing and AI specialists working on Amazon’s cloud computing firm, Amazon Web Services.
At the Manesar warehouse, which helps Amazon deliver products to the national capital region of the country, there are more than 1,800 associates – a term the e-commerce company uses for its warehouse workers.
Amazon’s warehouse associates play a crucial role in processing and preparing the company’s online deliveries. Some workers receive, check and sort the delivery products, while others pick, pack and ship the customer orders, while relocating products within the warehouse and loading trucks.
Amazon has more than 60 such fulfilment centres across India.In recent years, Amazon’s treatment of workers has come under increased scrutiny, especially in the West, including the United Kingdom and the United States.
Amazon’s workers clock in a total of 10 hours at the Manesar warehouse. That includes two 30-minute breaks.
However, their work requires them to stand for the rest of the nine hours.“We have to do all the tasks assigned to us on our feet. We are not allowed to even sit,” Supriya*, who works at the inbound department of the warehouse, said. Workers in the inbound department handle products that arrive in the warehouse from manufacturers and sellers.
Workers unload products and help in organising and storing them.Supriya said that the two 30-minute work breaks are insufficient. “We do have a canteen to go and rest, but the break of 30 minutes is too short for us to use the toilet, access our lockers, stand in the queue of the cafeteria, rest properly and come back to our workstation, all within that time window. There is no separate place to rest as well,” she said.
Amazon also acknowledged in its response to India’s Labour and Employment Ministry that it offers no other place for the workers to rest or sit other than the cafeteria.
“Our cafeterias are air-conditioned, comfortable and have adequate seating arrangement,” Amazon said in the June 24 letter to the Indian government. In addition to the two 30-minute breaks, Amazon said that workers are “free to [and] regularly take informal breaks”.
Amazon told the Indian government that the company is evaluating whether it can arrange for additional seating arrangements through cafeterias at the warehouse.
But Supriya disputed Amazon’s claim that workers frequently take informal breaks.They simply can’t afford to, she said.