For years, Amazon warehouse staffers have complained about unsafe working conditions and the injury risks they face when rushing to fill packages and get them to customers in two days or less.
While Amazon claims its injury rate is coming down, facility-level data released last month from the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration underscores employee concerns, showing that in 2022 Amazon laborers were injured at a rate of 6.9 for each 100. In January, OSHA investigators cited Amazon for “failing to maintain employees protected.”
Industrywide numbers for last yr won’t be released until November, but OSHA head Doug Parker said Amazon has a history of injury rates which can be far higher than others within the warehouse category. In 2021, Amazon’s injury rate was almost 1.5 times the industry average. At some Amazon warehouse locations, Parker said, the speed was as high as 12 employees out of 100.
“That is greater than 10% of the workforce every yr who’re receiving injuries on the job which can be serious enough that they should take time away from their jobs,” Parker said, regarding those warehouses. “We all know that it’s affecting 1000’s of employees and it’s totally alarming.”
Bobby Gosvener is one former employee living with pain.
Gosvener worked at an Amazon warehouse in Tulsa, Oklahoma, until 2020. He said after a conveyor belt malfunctioned that December he was left with a herniated disk that required neck surgery. He’s now on everlasting partial disability.
“I even have to live with this injury for the remainder of my life,” Gosvener said. “I hate to this present day even to order through Amazon since it’s so convenient, but each time I have a look at a box, I feel of the strategy of what went through it and who got hurt within the midst of it.”
Jennifer Crane works through pain at an Amazon warehouse in St. Peters, Missouri, after hurting her wrist in October. She said she tore a ligament from “packing a case of sparkling water repetitively all day, together with pet food and Gatorades.” She wears a brace to assist her get through the day.
“After like two hours of heavy lifting, I’m taking pain meds,” Crane said.
She needs the job. Crane became a single mom to her seven sons when her husband died of a heart attack in 2019.
“I’ve got to find a way to support them. I even have bills to pay,” she said. Crane said she knows she could search for other work, “but immediately I’m within the fight to attempt to make it higher there for everyone.”
Amazon employee Jennifer Crane at her house outside St. Louis, Missouri, in 2022.
Missouri Staff Center
Crane is circulating a petition at her warehouse asking for a slower pace of labor, more breaks, ergonomic changes and equipment updates.
In response to those accounts of injury and pain, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said in a press release, “Amazon worked diligently to accommodate each employees and ensure that they had what they needed not only to work safely but in addition to get better. Any claim on the contrary is fake.”
Amazon’s self-reported injury rate fell 9% between 2021 and 2022. Beyond warehouses, the e-commerce giant says its injury rate across all worldwide operations, some 1.5 million employees, dropped nearly 24% from 2019 to 2022.
“I do not dispute that their injury rates could have gone down some over a time frame, but they’re still not adequate,” OSHA’s Parker said.
Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of labor unions, crunched OSHA’s latest data and located Amazon’s injury rate was greater than double that of all non-Amazon warehouses in 2022. In accordance with the report, Amazon employed 36% of U.S. warehouse employees in 2022, but was answerable for greater than 53% of all serious injuries within the industry.
Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, said by email that the group’s findings “paint an inaccurate picture.”
“The security and health of our employees is, and at all times shall be, our top priority, and any claim otherwise is inaccurate,” Nantel said. “We’re happy with the progress made by our team and we’ll proceed working hard together to maintain convalescing each day.”
“Amazon’s apparent attitude about that is to disclaim that they’ve an issue,” said Eric Frumin, SOC’s health and safety director.
Federal scrutiny
Federal authorities at the moment are looking into the health and issues of safety, with inspections across seven Amazon warehouses in five states last summer. OSHA issued citations in any respect seven locations.
“At each facility we found serious hazards that were putting employees at serious risk of bodily harm,” Parker said. “What’s most concerning is the size. We have now every reason to consider that the varieties of processes where we found hazards in these facilities are processes which can be utilized in Amazon facilities across the country.”
OSHA also acted on referrals from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Latest York, which pointed to similar hazards in its own investigation of the facilities. Two more warehouses were cited for safety violations by Washington state’s Department of Labor. OSHA also cited Amazon for 14 record-keeping violations, finding that the corporate didn’t properly report employee injuries and illnesses.
Amazon is appealing all of the citations. In the event that they’re upheld, the corporate may have to pay its first ever federal fines for employee musculoskeletal injuries. To date, they total nearly $152,000. The Washington state DOJ fines add a further $81,000.
Amazon has a market cap of roughly $1 trillion and last yr generated revenue of over $500 billion.
“There is not any sum of money that the Labor Department can impose as a penalty that is going to make a difference to an organization that runs through billions of dollars a day,” Frumin said. “What matters is, are they going to respect the necessity for his or her employees to be protected?”
In a rare case of federal cooperation, the Department of Justice can also be investigating Amazon, asking if the corporate “engaged in a fraudulent scheme designed to cover the true variety of injuries,” in line with a January press release. The DOJ’s civil division is looking into whether Amazon executives made “false representations” to lenders about its safety record to acquire credit.
In a press release, Amazon told CNBC, “We strongly disagree with the allegations and are confident that this process will ultimately show they’re unfounded.” The corporate said it’s expanding the team answerable for record-keeping.
‘Should you’re rushing, you are going to make mistakes’
For Daniel Olayiwola, who’s worked at Amazon since 2017, the first concern is the pressure to work quickly.
“You’ve to be sure these rates are met,” Olayiwola said. “Otherwise you are going to be getting a write-up. You then’re not going to be getting any opportunities to modify positions or move up in any respect.”
Olayiwola introduced a proposal ultimately yr’s annual shareholders meeting, asking Amazon to stop tracking employees’ rate of labor and what’s called “time without work task.” The measure failed.
“It’s a giant contributor to the quantity of injuries we get at Amazons worldwide,” Olayiwola said. “I can hands down say that. Should you’re rushing, you are going to make mistakes and someone’s going to get hurt.”
Amazon employee Daniel Olayiwola poses outside his warehouse in San Antonio, Texas, on March 9, 2023.
Lucas Mullikin
Olayiwola drives a forklift to choose up heavy items in a warehouse in San Antonio, Texas. He said the slowest acceptable rate at the ability is about 22 an hour, “meaning you’d should pick an item every three minutes.”
“Which is crazy if the item is a mirror, a dresser, a bed frame,” Olayiwola said. “But you’ve to maintain picking these things and you’ve to drop them off at these designated drop zones.”
An Amazon spokesperson said in an email that the “pace of labor” is not referenced in any of OSHA’s citations. However the Southern DIstrict of Latest York’s investigations at six warehouses cited pace of labor as a difficulty. And three states — Latest York, California, and Washington — have passed laws searching for to curtail the usage of productivity quotas at Amazon warehouses.
Within the meantime, Olayiwola has sought support from United for Respect, a retail employee advocacy group, and he hosts a podcast called “Surviving Scamazon.” Like Crane, he desires to support his family while working to provide change from the within. His wife is pregnant with their second child, and he calls his work at Amazon a “vital evil.”
OSHA says similar investigations are currently underway at 10 other Amazon sites, with broader investigations pending at dozens more.
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