Lessons from Amazon’s Initial Response to the Coronavirus Pandemic

When governments responded to the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020 with “stay-at-home” orders that shut down businesses and left millions of households desperate for ways to continue to buy products needed to get through the crisis, the demand for Amazon services exploded.   For example, it was reported that the company’s grocery orders surged by 50 times.  In March of that year, the company announced that it would be hiring 100,000 additional workers for its fulfillment centers and delivery networks, welcome news when jobs in the retail and service industries had disappeared overnight and many would likely be gone forever.  Amazon also increased hourly wages for its workers by $2.00.  Wall Street recognized that Amazon had been transformed from a convenience to a utility and its stock price bumped up 5% as the rest of the market endured its worst quarterly performance since the late 1980s.  However, while Amazon clearly offered a life line to a struggling nation, serious questions emerged about whether the company was taking the appropriate steps to protect, and reward, the workers who were taking big risks to carry out their jobs and provide for themselves and their families. 

While Amazon’s leaders insisted in their formal public communications that they understood that “none of this works without our employees“ and praised their bravery, media reports painted a picture of a workforce that felt vulnerable and unprotected by the company’s response to the unique challenges that the coronavirus created in the workplace.  Among the reported problems were crowded spaces; a required rate of work that did not allow for proper sanitizing of work spaces; a lack of sanitizing wipes and other protective equipment; inadequate testing and screening procedures for persons entering facilities; unclear leave policies; poor communications; inadequate compliance procedures; requirements that workers process orders for products that were helpful, but not critical; and apparent retaliation against workers who led protects or otherwise lodged complaints and concerns.  Compounding the stress for many workers was the need for them to commute long distances to Amazon facilities using public transportation, conditions that were unsafe due to poor sanitation and crowded conditions.  Workers took little solace in the company’s stories of their “heroic work”.  One former employee, fired after leading a group of his co-workers out of a fulfillment center in protest of what they called the company’s inadequate response to the crisis, told a New York Times reporter: “They keep saying we’re like the Red Cross . . . We’re not.  We’re regular people, and we didn’t sign up for this.”

The controversy surrounding Amazon’s actions at the beginning of the pandemic is part of a long running and larger debate about the company’s impact on the economy and serves as a reminder that even the biggest and most innovative enterprises with enormous resources and access to talent do not have all the answers and a playbook that can be immediately deployed.  Governmental entities provided guidance for businesses; however, it changed constantly as new information emerged.  There are no laws or regulations specific to work life during a pandemic that can serve as a reference point, but what we should know is that businesses have a social responsibility to respect certain universal human rights of their workers as they re-tool to operate sustainably during the initial outbreak of the coronavirus and in a post-pandemic world.  As such, businesses looking to develop plans for coping with the pandemic need to engage in rigorous human rights risk and impact assessments to identify how their actions impact the human rights of their workers and other stakeholders and ensure that they do not engage in conduct that increases the harm associated with the pandemic.

The UN International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights provides that everyone has the right to “the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health” and obligates states to take effective steps for the “prevention, treatment and control of epidemic, endemic, occupational and other diseases.”  While the Covenant imposes duties and obligations on states, a Human Rights Watch commentary on its application to the actions of states in responding to the coronavirus pandemic suggests several issues that businesses should consider in developing their own plans for coping with the crisis in a manner that acknowledges and respects the human rights of their workers and other stakeholders: protecting freedom of expression and ensuring access to critical information; minimizing the risks of adverse health impacts of work activities by ensuring that workers have adequate information about health and safety (accessible and available in all languages and in a form that can be understood by workers with varying literacy levels) and adequate protective clothing and equipment; identifying and addressing disproportionate impacts of the crisis on women and girls including the likelihood of additional care giving responsibilities to their family members; ensuring the decisions made in relation to the crisis, such as which workers are laid off or furloughed, do not target or discriminate against particular religious or ethnic groups or other vulnerable populations; and supporting, to the extent reasonably possible given available resources, the efforts of community and civil society organizations to ensure access to needed protection, care and social services.

As with any crisis, leadership from the top of the organization—the board of directors and members of the senior management team—is essential.  The response cannot be left completely in the hands of managers and supervisors, regardless of how talented and compassionate they might be.  They must have clear and formal guidance from organizational leaders in the form of plans, policies, processes and communications that are based on relevant standards and commitments, such as those relating to conditions of work and social protection, social dialogue and workplace health and safety included in Article 6.4 the ISO 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility prepared by the International Organizational for Standardization (“ISO 26000”).  The Amazon case outlined above suggests that consideration should be given to the following issues and actions by all businesses committed to a safe working environment and responsible employment relationships as they respond to crises such as the coronavirus pandemic:

• Before workers are asked or required to return to work, the company must develop, implement and consistently enforce health and safety policies based on the best available information relating to safety and health standards and a comprehensive assessment of health and safety risks involved in all of the company’s operational activities.  Each situation will be different; however, reference should be made to guidelines released by governmental agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, as well as any industry specific protocols and guidance issued by nonprofit and inter-governmental organizations such as the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, the Institute for Human Rights & Business and the OECD Centre for Responsible Business Conduct. 
• When developing health and safety policies, company leaders must consult with experts on health and safety management generally and the specific risks associated with the health crisis at hand.  Companies should assemble a group of independent medical and scientific advisors to help directors and senior managers understand the relevant data and formulate appropriate policies.  While these directors and managers hopefully contribute significant value in their own areas of expertise and experience, they need to accept what they do not know and listen carefully to the experts.
• The company must be prepared to invest in providing all of the equipment needed for the safety of the workers including personal protective equipment and should develop plans for training workers about proper procedures and continuously monitoring compliance and disseminating new information.  Work schedules, and output targets, must be modified to accommodate the additional time and resources that must be set aside for compliance audits and closing facilities for cleaning and inspections, as well as making it easier to deploy proven methods of mitigating risk such as social distancing.
• Expectations regarding reporting to work and leave policies were clearly not well established at Amazon and businesses need to carefully consider not only legal requirements with respect to working hours and leaves, but also need to clearly articulate the criterion for leaves related to medical conditions associated with the outbreak of the coronavirus including the need to care for family members.  Employees need to understand the standards that will be applied, including any proof that might be necessary, and the requirements for paid leave.  In turn, the company must apply those standards consistently and compassionately.  In addition, companies must respect the rights of workers to refuse work that is reasonably considered to pose an imminent or serious danger to their life or health or to the lives and health of others.
• While Amazon, like many businesses, does not negotiate with its workers through labor unions, it nonetheless has broader obligations to engage in social dialogue with employees and their representatives on matters of common interest relating to economic and social concerns.  At the outset of a crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic, support should be given to workers to allow them to organize for communications with company leadership on matters relating to the crisis without fear of reprisals by the company.  In this way, communications between the company and recognized leaders and representatives of workers can proceed more efficiently and decisions and guidelines can be rapidly dispersed throughout the workforce.  Other companies proactively relied on social media tools and other communications technologies to ensure that timely operational and safety information was timely delivered to their workers.
• The company must record and investigate all health and safety incidents and problems in order to minimize or eliminate them and should be prepared to transparently disclose issues to workers’ representatives and involve them in developing solutions for mitigating risks of further harm.  Given the power and speed of social media, the company must be prepared to address reports of problems that circulate in the broader community.
• When developing policies and procedures the company should give careful consideration to special issues and risks for certain groups of workers such as women, minorities, workers with disabilities, older workers and anyone else who might be particularly vulnerable to the specific health crisis.  In this particular situation, given the nature of health crisis, the impact of a worker’s continued service on family members including children for whom daycare is not available and others especially vulnerable to the coronavirus needs to be taken into account and information on the individual situation of each worker needs to be collected.  Workers should be encouraged to be truthful about their issues and concerns and assured that they will not be penalized if they request and require special accommodations.
• While an extraordinary event such as the coronavirus pandemic will eventually require a full re-assessment of the company’s business model, company leaders should also consider scaling back current activities to reduce unnecessary stress on limited physical and psychological resources among the workforce.  In the Amazon case, the company was rightly criticized for having workers fulfill orders for non-essential products.  Other companies dependent on production line processes involving workers acting in close proximity to one another should consider reducing the targeted speed of the lines to take into account the need for workers to clean their workspaces more frequently and the likelihood that activities will need to be completed using less labor given absences from work due to the virus. All businesses must consider what value they are providing to society while operating and asking their workers to take on extraordinary risks.  Customers should be involved in developing a response to the crisis so that the company understands their needs and expectations regarding the way that the company’s products and services are delivered.  The ability of suppliers to fulfill their obligations to the company must also be taken into consideration when deciding what is really feasible for the company to produce.
• All of the steps outlined above are in addition to, not in lieu of, addressing and managing all of the issues and activities otherwise associated with keeping the company running.  As such, changes in organizational structure should be made to ensure that appropriate attention is paid to the pandemic response and that representatives from throughout the organization are involved.  Special committees and task forces focusing on coordinating the pandemic response—literally a “war room”—should be created and should include board members, the CEO and other C-suite executives, independent medical and scientific advisors, workers’ representatives and other able to speak to the situations and concerns of other stakeholders.  It is likely that this group will be a long term fixture in organizations, albeit with modifications as the situation evolves.

If the Amazon case tells us anything, it is that companies must forge trusting relationships with their workers during a crisis, which means that organizational leaders must be fully committed to recognizing and respecting certain rights of workers included in Article 6.4.6.1 of ISO 26000 including the right to obtain timely, full and accurate information concerning health and safety risks and the best practices used to address these risks; freely inquire into and be consulted on all aspects of their health and safety related to their work; and participate in health and safety decisions and activities including investigation of incidents and accidents.  Companies must follow the recommendations of ISO 26000 to involve legitimate representatives of workers in gathering information; developing and implementing safety guidelines and training programs; reporting, recording and investigating incidents and problems; and investigating and responding to problems raised by workers or management.  Worker representatives must be drawn from all segments of the workforce to ensure that all impacted groups have a voice in the company’s response to the crisis. 

It might be argued that Amazon, given its unique position in an unforeseen economic environment, did not have sufficient time to do all of the things outlined above and had to learn “on the fly” while still operating at great speed.  However, many other businesses, sidelined by governmental orders, have had time to watch how all this has played out at Amazon and need to apply the lessons to their own plans about opening up when the time comes.  Eventually, legal standards will emerge to establish the minimum obligations of companies to their workers, but socially responsible business and human resource management is based on the proposition that companies have an obligation to exceed legal standards when forging relationships with their workers and take steps to ensure that workers are treated with dignity and value and feel safe in their workplace.  Companies should not await the outcome of legislative and judicial debates but rather should begin now to base their decisions and actions on principles such as those outlined in ISO 26000 and in the instruments developed by the other organizations mentioned above which extend “beyond the law” and incorporate respect for workers’ human rights.

Sources: G. Bellafante, “Amazon Workers Are Feeling Vulnerable”, New York Times (April 5, 2020), 29 and “Gaps in Amazon’s Response Leave Workers Feeling Exposed”, New York Times (April 6, 2020); and Human Rights Dimensions of COVID-19 Response (March 19, 2020),   ISO 26000 Guidance on Social Responsibility is available for purchase at the ISO website.  See also A. Gutterman, “Protecting Workers When Reopening Businesses in the Covid-19 Pandemic” in Sustainability and Human Rights Standards Relating to Labor Practices (Oakland CA: Sustainable Entrepreneurship Project, 2020), available at www.seproject.org.