“New Report Claims Extensive Worker Abuses at One of the World’s Largest Logistics Companies”, 07 October 2020

A new report released on Wednesday shines a light on the exploitative and dangerous labor practices the company has utilized across the United States and Europe in recent years, particularly during the ongoing pandemic.

A XPO spokesperson told Motherboard many of these claims were outdated. “The report repeats wholly inaccurate allegations that have been entirely debunked,” the spokesperson said.

In April, XPO Logistics CEO Jacobs wrote in a letter to shareholders about the impacts of COVID-19 on business, "We’ve deliberately built XPO like a bulletproof tank to surmount all kinds of challenges."

But the report's authors strongly rebuke this statement, stressing that the company sacrificed worker safety to keep up with the demands of its delivery services during the pandemic…

The report claims XPO failed to source its own warehouse workers with masks for weeks….

… [T]he company came under … scrutiny in the United States … when the New York Times ran a front page story that detailed the stories of numerous women who had miscarried and one woman who collapsed from a heart attack …. According to the report, XPO had routinely been ignoring requests for pregnancy accommodations for its workers.

A spokesperson for XPO noted that the company’s revamped pregnancy policy has resulted in more than 1,500 accommodations to pregnant employees and approximately 650 employees have taken the paid parental leave.

… [F]or years, XPO has maintained an aggressive anti-union stance at its facilities in the United States. Its employee handbook, as of 2017, stated "the Company’s employees have an absolute legal right not to belong to the union."

"About 20 years ago, a lot of major companies outsourced their transport operation to companies like XPO," he continued. "A lot of these major brands don't even know the level or extent of exploitation that goes on their supply chains."