Amazon faces Indian court scrutiny for labour conditions at warehouse 

Amazon is facing prosecution in an Indian court for labour law violations at a major warehouse near the country’s national capital of Delhi.

Documents reviewed by Al Jazeera through India’s Right to Information Act and court records showed that a labour inspection earlier this year alleged inadequate safety equipment, and failure to comply with provisions of labour laws at the Amazon warehouse.

That 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.

‘Labour law violations’

The labour inspection report, reviewed by Al Jazeera through the Right to Information Act, concluded that “labour laws are not being followed by the organisation”.

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 told Al Jazeera in an email response to detailed questions on the allegations spelled out in the Haryana government’s labour investigation.

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.

‘Stiff work targets’

But while the company won’t comment, Al Jazeera spoke to three workers in different departments at the Manesar warehouse, who painted a picture of an exploitative environment very different from the one that Amazon portrays in its description of these facilities as ‘fulfilment centres’. They spoke on condition of anonymity, for fear of retribution from the company for speaking with a journalist.

A major complaint related to strict targets given to them at work. Another common complaint was about a lack of opportunities for workers to rest during the day, at the warehouse.

“In one hour, I have to process 60 items that are return products that come back to Amazon. So, for one product, within a minute, I have to open the box, check the item for damage, review the customer’s comment and verify if it’s sellable or not,” said Prakash*, who has worked at the warehouse for almost five years. He spoke on condition of anonymity, afraid of being sacked for speaking to a journalist.

“The targets are so tough to meet.”

Amazon told India’s Labour and Employment Ministry in a letter in June that it is “confident” the targets given to its warehouse workers are “comfortably achievable”, and that the company has “sufficient headroom in capacity”, which is expanded whenever necessary.

Al Jazeera reviewed a copy of the detailed response that Amazon sent to India’s Labour and Employment Ministry on June 24 this year on the government’s allegations of “certain workplace practices” at its Manesar warehouse.

The complaint related to hourly working targets assigned to workers was also taken up by the Haryana government’s labour inspection team. The inspection report found no written agreement between workers and the Amazon warehouse management, while workers told Al Jazeera that the targets were set verbally.

“There’s nothing more important to us than the safety and wellbeing of our employees and associates, and we comply with all relevant laws and regulations. Our facilities are industry-leading and provide competitive pay, comfortable working conditions, and specially designed infrastructure to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for all,” an Amazon spokesperson said in an email statement to Al Jazeera.

Monitoring of work

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.

Supriya said she is often given a target of stowing 150 items per hour in the warehouse inventories, which she finds demanding. She complained of being heavily monitored at work. That makes it even harder to take breaks. Supriya explained that if she takes rest during the nine hours she is supposed to be working, the system logs it as “idle time”. Both Supriya and Prakash said that if workers are falling behind in meeting their hourly targets, including through “high” idle time, they may be handed over a “negative ADAPT”.

To review employee performance, Amazon is known to have been using a tracking software known as ADAPT, which stands for Associate Development and Performance Tracker (ADAPT) at its warehouses, including in other parts of the world as well, like the US and the UK. Supriya and Prakash said that if workers receive three negative ADAPT within a period of 22 days, they are blacklisted from working at any of Amazon’s warehouses.

Al Jazeera reviewed a copy of a negative ADAPT given to one of its workers at its Manesar warehouse. The written ADAPT notice asks the worker to sign an acknowledgement saying how their performance has not met expectations and that failure to improve may lead to termination of employment.

“People join Amazon with the aspirations of working at a multinational company. But the reality is that workers often report high pressure to meet unrealistic targets,”  Nitesh Kumar Das, an organiser at Amazon India Workers Association (AIWA), said.

“Based on our ongoing engagement with Amazon warehouse workers, it is clear that there are persistent issues regarding working conditions across Amazon’s facilities in India.”

Earlier this year, AIWA in collaboration with UNI Global Union, a global trade union for services sector workers, conducted a survey of more than 1,800 drivers and warehouse workers at Amazon’s India facilities. The survey revealed that more than 80 percent of warehouse workers found the targets set by the company for their work difficult to achieve.

Amazon termed the AIWA survey as “factually incorrect, unsubstantiated”, and in contradiction to the feedback it gets from its own employees. “The data being quoted appears at best questionable, and at worst deliberately designed to deliver on a specific narrative that certain groups are trying to claim as fact,” Amazon said in its statement to Al Jazeera.

While not specifically mentioning the ADAPT system, Amazon said that the company has performance expectations for its employees and it measures actual performance against those expectations. “When setting those targets, we take into account time in role, experience and the safety and well-being of our employees. We support people who are not performing to the levels expected with dedicated coaching to help them improve,” Amazon said.

But the practice of firing workers on receiving ‘three productivity flags’ has been acknowledged by the company’s executives in the UK. In January this year, French regulator CNIL had fined Amazon over $34m for “implementing an excessively intrusive system for monitoring employee activity and performance”. Amazon has appealed against the decision, terming it factually inaccurate.

Back at the Manesar warehouse, Supriya says she wants to be treated with dignity at work. The ADAPT system, she said, needs to be abolished so that she and her colleagues do not feel constantly monitored at work.

“We are working relentlessly to ensure that deliveries are on time,” Tirvan*, another associate who has been working at the Manesar warehouse for more than two years, said. “And all this time, the biggest worry for us at the end of the day is whether we are meeting our targets or not … This feeling should go.”

*Names changed to protect the identity of workers who fear retribution for speaking to the media