Amazon ‘obstructing’ probe into warehouse collapse: House committee

Members of the Home Oversight Committee are alleging that Amazon is “obstructing” the panel’s investigation right into a lethal warehouse collapse at one of many firm’s services in Illinois.

In a Wednesday letter addressed to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Oversight’s chairwoman, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., mentioned the corporate has “failed to supply” key paperwork requested by lawmakers associated to the tragic warehouse collapse.

Final December, a twister ripped by considered one of Amazon’s warehouses, often known as DLI4, inflicting the 1.1 million-square-foot facility’s roof to break down, whereas 40-foot-tall, 11-inch thick partitions on the perimeters of the constructing fell inward.

Six employees have been killed. Most of the victims were contracted delivery drivers, who pulled into the ability simply earlier than the storm hit and frantically fled to a rest room in an space of the constructing that was hit by the storm.

The Home Oversight Committee in April opened a probe into Amazon’s labor practices and is particularly zeroing in on its dealing with of the warehouse collapse. Lawmakers gave Amazon till April 14 to answer its inquiry and produce the requested paperwork. The committee is in search of communications between Amazon managers and workers on the Edwardsville, Illinois facility, amongst different issues.

“Practically seven weeks have handed for the reason that April 2022 deadline, but Amazon nonetheless has not produced any of the important thing classes of paperwork recognized by Committee workers, not to mention the total set of supplies the Committee requested in March,” the lawmakers mentioned.

Amazon additionally refused to share paperwork associated to its inside investigation of the warehouse collapse, the lawmakers mentioned. They added that attorneys for Amazon declined to supply them citing “work-product and attorney-client privileges.” However these privileges aren’t “legitimate causes to withhold paperwork from Congress,” they mentioned.

“Amazon’s failure to offer key paperwork has obstructed the Committee’s investigation,” the lawmakers wrote, including that Amazon should reply by June 8.

“If Amazon fails to take action, the Committee can have no alternative however to contemplate different measures to acquire full compliance,” they added.

Amazon did not instantly reply to a request for remark.

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel previously told CNBC that the corporate stays centered on supporting its workers, the households of the victims and the encircling Edwardsville group.

WATCH: Six Amazon employees dead after tornado hits Illinois warehouse