Amazon under 
 pressure to 
 protect workers in 
 seller supply 
 chains 

Amazon is the largest e-retailer in the world, but many of its third-party sellers operate in the shadows. Amazon must do more to protect workers making goods sold on their marketplace.

Have you ever wondered who makes all the products that are sold on Amazon? Labour Behind the Label’s new study ‘Unboxing Marketplace Fashion’ is out this summer. We’ve traced the businesses involved in three fashion products sold on Amazon, talked to the workers who made them, and are calling on Amazon to do more to protect worker rights in seller supply chains. 

The rapid transformation of fashion retail through e-commerce has introduced unprecedented convenience for consumers, while significantly altering global supply chain dynamics. Hundreds of thousands of formerly unknown brands now sell fashion on mass consumer platforms like Amazon, which provides a diversity of choice for fashion consumers, but is also resulting in higher levels of sourcing from factories where there is little scrutiny over human rights. 

This report investigates the rise of fashion marketplaces, how these marketplaces interact with third party brands they host and the resulting implications for human rights in apparel supply chains. Despite Amazon’s statements on ethical practices, the platform’s actual requirements for sellers fall far short of international human rights standards. 

Companies like Amazon are the gatekeepers of ethical requirements. They could act to demand that sellers publicly disclose their supply chains to make production transparent

Amazon have the influence to demand that sellers disclose their supply chain locations, or require that sellers actively participate in checking human rights are upheld in factories. But they don’t. Millions of garment workers remain invisible and unprotected in the shadows of global supply chains linked to online retailers. We are taking action to change this.