Amazon is known for three things: two-day shipping, billion-dollar profits, and mistreating workers. Amazon employees are frequently discouraged from taking bathroom breaks and otherwise encouraged—some would say, coerced—to be as efficient and to work as quickly as possible. Since 2016, over 100 federal investigations have been launched against the company for forcing workers to labor in dangerous and unhealthy conditions (Riley, 2019). In common with many other large employers, Amazon classifies the majority of its workforce as “associates”, in order to avoid having to pay for the various protections that employees are guaranteed under federal law. When we consider the issue of “associate” compensation, however, some companies (Walmart comes immediately to mind) make Amazon seem positively progressive in the limited extent to which it exploits those in its employ (Childress, 2012).
These facts provide an occasion to reflect on the question of what our attitude should be toward employee safety, in general, and toward workplace deaths, in particular. One reasonable starting point is with the proposition that “No workplace death or injury is acceptable”. Consideration must begin with various ways in which this proposition may be interpreted.
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One interpretation understands the proposition as implying that it is intolerable that any workplace death or injury should occur. One problem with this understanding is that workplace injuries—and in some workplaces, workplace deaths—are inevitable. There is no way to prevent them completely. However, this extreme interpretation is not the only one to which the proposition will submit. An alternative understanding is that every precaution against the possibility of workplace injuries and deaths should be taken. Yet this too is unacceptably hyperbolic. Even if it were possible to virtually rule out the very possibility of a workplace accident, doing so would be prohibitively expensive for the employer. Many parties in the discussion think that employers are doing far too little to ensure their workers’ safety. But this is asking too much.
Fortunately, or unfortunately (depending on how one looks at the matter), nothing this extreme is being demanded or even requested by workers’ safety-rights advocates. It is completely uncontroversial that reasonable precautions against worker accidents and deaths can be provided without sacrificing the profitability of the firm in question. The controversy results from doubts about the term “reasonable”, in this statement, and the extent to which profit may be, or should be required to be, sacrificed in order to ensure safety.
Opposition to worker safety laws and policies tends to stem from one or both of two related narratives (Silverstein, 2008). The first is that government intrusion in the economic market is unethical and/or inefficient. The second is that firms have plenty of incentive, even without oppressive government regulation, to provide for the safety of their employees. Neither of these lines of argument stands up to serious scrutiny.
As to the proposition that government interference in the economic market is unethical, there are two serious problems. First, there is as things now stand virtually no aspect of the alleged “free market” in which government has not set regulations. It is easy to forget how many things are prevented by government regulation. Most of these are things that we believe ought to be prevented. Examples are selling bodily organs, selling illegal drugs, selling sexual favors (in most places), selling children, and so forth. As commonsensical as many of these prohibitions are, it is an indisputable fact that all of them are made on political grounds. Those who believe that government interference in the “free market” is unethical thus face the uncomfortable dilemma of either condemning (for example) the sale of children as something that we should condone, or drawing to draw an invidious distinction between behaviors that ought to be condemned and outlawed versus behaviors that should be left up to the market. The distinction is invidious because there are no non-political grounds for rejecting some of these behaviors while accepting others.
This brings us to the suggestion that firms plenty of incentive, independently of governmental regulations, to look out for the safety of their workers. This reasoning has a certain plausibility. Businesses want to have good and reliable employees. There is no other way to maximize customer satisfaction and hence profits. Therefore, there is no reason that businesses would engage in behavior that the government might seek to regulate, with respect to employee safety.
This line of argument was much more persuasive a half-century ago than it is today. Set aside, for the moment, the specific issue of worker safety. The idea that firms have a strong incentive to treat their employees well has been repeatedly disproven. For example, the bottom 80% or so of employees segregated by means of wage level have seen their compensation in real dollars (adjusted for inflation) either stagnate or fall since the 1970s. This has occurred despite the fact that the Gross Domestic Product for the U.S. in that time has grown significantly, in fact nearly doubling (Workplace Fatalities, 2008). Translation: the rich have prospered, and the poor have suffered. This is inexplicable given the assumption that employers have strong incentive to treat their employees well.
- Childress, S. (2012). How subcontracting affects worker safety. Frontline, 22 May. Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/how-subcontracting-affects-worker-safety/ 28 September 2019.
- Riley, T. (2019). She injured herself working at Amazon. Then the real nightmare began. Mother Jones, 19 March. Retrieved from https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/amazon-workers-compensation-amcare-clinic-warehouse/ 28 September 2019.
- Silverstein, M. (2008). Getting home safe and sound: occupational safety and health 38 administration at 38. American Journal of Public Health, 98(3), 416-423.
- Workplace Fatalities. (2018). NSC.org. Retrieved from https://www.nsc.org/work-safety/tools-resources/infographics/workplace-fatalities 28 September 2019.
