For years, Amazon warehouse employees have complained about unsafe working conditions and the danger of injury they face once they rush to fill packages and deliver them to customers in two days or less.
While Amazon Says Its Injury Rate Is Falling, object-level data published last month by the US Department of Labor Occupational Health and Safety Administration highlights employees’ concerns, showing that Amazon employees were injured at a rate of 6.9 out of 100 in 2022. In January, OSHA investigators accused Amazon of “failing to maintain employees secure.”
Industry figures for last 12 months won’t be released until November, but OSHA chief Doug Parker said Amazon has a history of injury rates which might be significantly higher than others within the warehouse category. In 2021, Amazon’s injury rate was almost 1.5 times the industry average. Parker said that at some Amazon warehouses, the speed was as high as 12 employees out of 100.
“That is greater than 10% of employees every year who sustain injuries at work which might be severe enough that they should take time to rest,” Parker said, referring to those magazines. “We all know 1000’s of employees are affected and it is rather worrying.”
Bobby Gosvener is a former worker living with pain.
Gosvener worked at an Amazon warehouse in Tulsa, Oklahoma until 2020. He said that after a conveyor belt failure in December, he was left with a herniated disc that required neck surgery. He’s currently on everlasting partial incapacity for work.
“I even have to live with this injury for the remaining of my life,” said Gosvener. “To today, I even hate ordering through Amazon since it’s so convenient, but each time I have a look at the box I believe in regards to the process that went through it and who got hurt in the method.”
Jennifer Crane works with pain at an Amazon warehouse in St. Peters, Missouri, after suffering a wrist injury in October. She said she tore a ligament from “packing a case of sparkling water over and once more all day, together with pet food and Gatorades.” She wears braces to assist her get through the day.
“After about two hours of heavy lifting, I take painkillers,” said Crane.
She needs this job. Crane became a single mother to her seven sons when her husband died of a heart attack in 2019.
“I even have to give you the option to support them. I even have bills to pay,” she said. Crane said she knew she could look for an additional job, “but now I’m fighting to make it higher for everybody.”
Amazon worker Jennifer Crane at her home in St. Louis, Missouri in 2022.
Missouri Employees Center
Crane is circulating a petition in his magazine asking for work to be slowed down, more breaks, ergonomic changes and equipment upgrades.
In response to those reports of injury and pain, Amazon spokeswoman Maureen Lynch Vogel said in a press release: “Amazon worked diligently to accommodate each employees and supply them with what they needed not only to work safely but additionally to get better. Any statement on the contrary is fake.”
Amazon’s reported injury rate fell 9% between 2021 and 2022. Outside of warehouses, the e-commerce giant says its injury rate across all operations worldwide, around 1.5 million employees, has fallen by almost 24% between 2019 and 2022.
“I do not dispute that their injury rates can have gone down a bit over a time period, but they’re still not adequate,” said OSHA’s Parker.
The Strategic Organizational Center (SOC), a coalition of labor unions, analyzed latest OSHA data and located that Amazon’s injury rate was greater than double that of all non-Amazon warehouses in 2022. Based on reportAmazon employed 36% of US warehouse employees in 2022, but was answerable for greater than 53% of all major injuries within the industry.
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokeswoman, said in an email that the group’s findings “paint an inaccurate picture.”
“The protection and health of our employees is and can all the time be our top priority and another claims are false,” Nantel said. “We’re happy with the progress our team has made and can proceed to work hard together to recuperate every single day.”
“Amazon’s apparent stance on that is to disclaim that they’ve an issue,” said Eric Frumin, director of health and safety at SOC.
Federal control
Federal authorities at the moment are investigating health and questions of safety with inspections last summer at seven Amazon warehouses in five states. released OSHA quotations in any respect seven locations.
“We found significant hazards at each facility that put employees at serious risk of injury,” Parker said. “Essentially the most worrying thing is the dimensions. Now we have every reason to consider that the varieties of processes where we have now found risks at these facilities are processes used at Amazon facilities across the country.”
OSHA also acted on referrals from the U.S. Attorney General’s Office for the Southern District of Recent York that pointed to similar threats during its own investigation of the facilities. The Washington State Department of Labor notified two more warehouses of a security breach. OSHA also cited Amazon 14 violations of recordsstating that the corporate didn’t properly report worker injuries and illnesses.
Amazon references all quotes. If upheld, the corporate could have to pay the first-ever federal advantageous for musculoskeletal injuries to employees. So far, they’ve totaled nearly $152,000. Washington State Department of Justice fines add a further $81,000.
Amazon has a market capitalization of around $1 trillion and generated revenue of over $500 billion last 12 months.
“There isn’t a amount that the Department of Labor can impose as a penalty that can make a difference for a corporation that makes billions of dollars a day,” Frumin said. “It will be important that they respect the security needs of their employees?”
In a rare case of federal cooperation, the Department of Justice can also be research Amazonasking if the corporateinvolved in a fraudulent scheme designed to hide the true variety of injuries,” in response to a January press release. The Department of Justice’s civil division is investigating whether Amazon executives made “false claims” about security to lenders with the intention to obtain credit.
In a press release, Amazon told CNBC: “We strongly disagree with the allegations and are confident that this trial will ultimately show that they’re baseless.” The corporate said it was expanding its record keeping team.
“If you happen to rush you’ll make mistakes”
For Daniel Olayiwola, who has been working at Amazon since 2017, the most important concern is the pressure to maneuver quickly.
“You could have to be sure that those rates are met,” Olayiwola said. “Otherwise, you will get a write-up. Then you definitely won’t have any opportunities to reposition or advance.”
Olayiwola presented a application eventually 12 months’s annual shareholder meeting, asking Amazon to stop tracking worker work pace and so-called “job free time.” The measure failed.
“It has a huge impact on the variety of injuries we sustain in Amazons world wide,” said Olayiwola. “I can say that. If you happen to rush, you may make mistakes and someone will get hurt.”
Amazon worker Daniel Olayiwola poses outside his warehouse in San Antonio, Texas, March 9, 2023.
Luke Mullikin
Olayiwola drives a heavy-lift forklift in a warehouse in San Antonio, Texas. He said the slowest acceptable rate at the power is around 22 hours an hour, “meaning you’ll need to choose an item every three minutes.”
“Which is crazy if the article is a mirror, a chest of drawers, a bed frame,” said Olayiwola. “But you need to still collect this stuff and drop them off on the designated drop zones.”
An Amazon spokesperson said in an email that “pace of labor” is just not mentioned in any OSHA quote. However the Southern District of Recent York is investigating six warehouses given work pace as an issue. And three states – Recent York, CaliforniaAND Washington — adopted laws to limit the usage of capability quotas in Amazon warehouses.
Meanwhile, Olayiwola has sought support from United for Respect, an advocacy group for retail employees, and is hosting podcast called “Surviving Scamazon”. Like Crane, she desires to support her family by working for change from inside. His wife is pregnant with their second child and calls working at Amazon a “essential evil.”
OSHA says similar investigations are currently underway at 10 other Amazon sites, and broader investigations are ongoing at dozens more.
Watch the video to learn more.