{"id":599047,"date":"2023-01-19T06:50:01","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T12:50:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/19\/a-damning-us-report-lays-bare-amazons-worker-injury-crisis\/"},"modified":"2023-01-19T06:50:01","modified_gmt":"2023-01-19T12:50:01","slug":"a-damning-us-report-lays-bare-amazons-worker-injury-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/01\/19\/a-damning-us-report-lays-bare-amazons-worker-injury-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"A Damning US Report Lays Bare Amazon\u2019s Worker Injury Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Amazon was hit<\/span> with an unusually forceful\u00a0safety citation<\/a> by federal investigators in the US today. The findings appear to back up what some workers at the company have long alleged: that the online retail giant\u2019s warehouse and fulfillment facilities are designed for speed over safety, causing lower-back injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders at high rates.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0citation released<\/a> by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration today concluded that Amazon was \u201cfailing to keep workers safe.\u201d The company did not properly protect them from hazards likely to cause \u201cserious physical harm,\u201d the agency claims. Despite years of allegations from workers and state-level investigations into Amazon\u2019s injury rates, today\u2019s action brought the first federal fines imposed on Amazon for worker musculoskeletal injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe citations are actually very substantive,\u201d says Debbie Berkowitz, a former senior adviser for OSHA and a worker safety fellow at Georgetown University. The investigation was unusually large for OSHA, and it is the agency\u2019s first to require that Amazon implement basic ergonomic principles to prevent injury, she says. The same investigation led OSHA in December<\/a> to cite Amazon for failing to record and report work injuries and illness.<\/p>\n

Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel says the company intends to appeal the agency\u2019s findings. \u201cWe\u2019ve cooperated fully, and the government\u2019s allegations don\u2019t reflect the reality of safety at our sites,\u201d she says. \u201cThe vast majority of our employees tell us they feel our workplace is safe.\u201d The federal government doesn\u2019t provide specific ergonomics guidance, and Amazon has invested significant time and money in lowering musculoskeletal risk, Nantel says, citing Amazon data that shows injury rates falling almost 15 percent between 2019 and 2021.<\/p>\n

OSHA\u2019s findings today echo research from a coalition of labor unions based on past injury data from the agency\u00a0that concluded<\/a> Amazon\u2019s warehouse injury rates are often at least double that of Walmart, its nearest competitor in size and scope. During the 2022 holiday season, warehouse workers\u00a0described to WIRED<\/a> their personal battles with exhaustion from overwork, wrist injuries, loud noise, and high-speed productivity expectations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The severity of the condemnation in the new federal citation was not matched by the penalty. If Amazon loses its planned appeal, it will have to pay a proposed fine of $60,269\u2014a trifling amount relative to its nearly $1 trillion market capitalization.<\/p>\n

OSHA fines for very specific, repeated, and drastic violations can increase to millions of dollars. The oil company BP has faced multiple fines amounting to over $10 million for spills and refinery accident-related violations. But the cap on fines for the types of safety violations that can cause back injuries, fractures, or sprains is much lower, creating little financial incentive for companies to change. \u201cOSHA’s fines have historically been incredibly low, but the company got the highest fines possible, I believe, for every violation cited,\u201d Berkowitz of Georgetown says.<\/p>\n

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OSHA generally tries to persuade companies like Amazon to prevent future injuries through detailed letters of inspection that include suggestions to improve processes causing injury. Those \u201chazard\u201d letters\u00a0were sent on January 17 to three Amazon facilities<\/a> that OSHA inspected during the course of this investigation, in\u00a0Deltona, Florida; Waukegan, Illinois; and New Windsor, New York.<\/p>\n

One letter sent to the Waukegan facility describes more than 20 sprains, fractures, bruises, and lacerations to feet, arms, faces, and other body parts caused by workers losing control of packages weighing over 50 pounds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Read More<\/a>
\n Anna Kramer<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amazon was hit with an unusually forceful\u00a0safety citation by federal investigators in the US today. The findings appear to back up what some workers at the company have long alleged: that the online retail giant\u2019s warehouse and fulfillment facilities are designed for speed over safety, causing lower-back injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders at high rates.The\u00a0citation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":599048,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4372,193,46],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-599047","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-damning","8":"category-report","9":"category-technology"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=599047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/599047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/599048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=599047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=599047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=599047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}