TIMES.KY

Cayman Islands, Caribbeanand International News
Thursday, Oct 03, 2024

Amazon slammed by US government for failing to record warehouse worker injuries. The investigation is ongoing.

Amazon slammed by US government for failing to record warehouse worker injuries. The investigation is ongoing.

Amazon has said it's reducing injuries at its warehouses. But if the company isn't recording all injuries, those claims could be hard to gauge.

Amazon kept some worker injuries off federally mandated injury reports, according to citations from an ongoing investigation of the company's warehouses by federal regulators.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, part of the US Department of Labor, issued Amazon citations for 14 record-keeping violations, including failing to record injuries and illnesses, misclassifying injuries and illnesses, not recording injuries and illnesses within the required time, and not providing OSHA with timely injury and illness records. Regulators inspected six warehouses in Florida, Illinois, Idaho, Colorado, and New York.

The citations complicate Amazon's previous statements that the company is successfully lowering injury rates at its fulfillment centers. The company's self-reported data to the Department of Labor shows that Amazon warehouse employees get hurt roughly twice as often, on average, as non-Amazon workers in the same industry. Amazon has said it's taking steps to bring injury rates at its warehouses in line with the industry average by 2025.

An Insider investigation earlier this year found that Amazon's high productivity goals sharply increase the risk of injury for its more than 750,000 US warehouse workers. 


Nothing will be done if injuries are not recorded


On Friday, federal officials said Amazon's underreporting could make it harder for the company to address the root cause of injuries at its facilities. Regulators have previously found that Amazon's rigorous disciplinary framework for underperforming workers and the company's intense focus on speed and productivity are contributing to excessively high rates of strains and sprains at its warehouses. Amazon has denied that its productivity goals are causing injuries.

"Our concern is that nothing will be done to keep an injury from recurring if it isn't even recorded in the logbook which — in a company the size of Amazon — could have significant consequences for a large number of workers," Doug Parker, the Department of Labor's assistant secretary for health and safety, said in a statement.

Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, characterized the findings as "a small number of administrative errors."

The company is "confident in the numbers we've reported to the government," Nantel said, noting that regulators classified the violations as "other than serious," the least-severe category of workplace-safety infraction. "The safety of our employees is our top priority, and we invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year into ensuring we have a robust safety program to protect them," Nantel added.


An injury in Colorado goes unreported


The citations describe dozens of injuries that never made it into Amazon's official logs. The government requires that companies record every injury that requires medical treatment, time off, or a work accommodation.

One worker at an Amazon warehouse in Colorado, for instance, reported shoulder pain after repeatedly lifting packages. Amazon's in-house clinic gave the worker a prescription for a muscle relaxer, and after five days, transferred the worker to a new role that would not aggravate his injury. The company did not report this injury. 

At a warehouse in Albany, New York, where a union election earlier this fall ended in defeat for labor organizers, Amazon failed to record 11 injuries over a six-week period in 2022, according to the citations.

Following referrals from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, the Department of Labor began investigating the Amazon warehouses this summer. Its investigation is ongoing.

Newsletter

Related Articles

TIMES.KY
0:00
0:00
Close
Paper straws found to contain long-lasting and potentially toxic chemicals - study
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
Blackrock gets half a trillion dollar deal to rebuild Ukraine
Israel: Unprecedented Civil Disobedience Looms as IDF Reservists Protest Judiciary Reform
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Singapore Carries Out First Execution of a Woman in Two Decades Amid Capital Punishment Debate
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Unlike illegal imigrants coming by boats - US Citizens Will Need Visa To Travel To Europe in 2024
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The politician and the journalist lost control and started fighting on live broadcast.
The future of sports
Unveiling the Black Hole: The Mysterious Fate of EU's Aid to Ukraine
Farewell to a Music Titan: Tony Bennett, Renowned Jazz and Pop Vocalist, Passes Away at 96
Alarming Behavior Among Florida's Sharks Raises Concerns Over Possible Cocaine Exposure
Transgender Exclusion in Miss Italy Stirs Controversy Amidst Changing Global Beauty Pageant Landscape
Joe Biden admitted, in his own words, that he delivered what he promised in exchange for the $10 million bribe he received from the Ukraine Oil Company.
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Global Trend: Using Anti-Fake News Laws as Censorship Tools - A Deep Dive into Tunisia's Scenario
Arresting Putin During South African Visit Would Equate to War Declaration, Asserts President Ramaphosa
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
The Changing Face of Europe: How Mass Migration is Reshaping the Political Landscape
China Urges EU to Clarify Strategic Partnership Amid Trade Tensions
Europe is boiling: Extreme Weather Conditions Prevail Across the Continent
The Last Pour: Anchor Brewing, America's Pioneer Craft Brewer, Closes After 127 Years
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Italian Court's Controversial Ruling on Sexual Harassment Ignites Uproar
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
BBC Anchor Huw Edwards Hospitalized Amid Child Sex Abuse Allegations, Family Confirms
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Distorted Mirror of actual approval ratings: Examining the True Threat to Democracy Beyond the Persona of Putin
40,000 child slaves in Congo are forced to work in cobalt mines so we can drive electric cars.
BBC Personalities Rebuke Accusations Amidst Scandal Involving Teen Exploitation
A Swift Disappointment: Why Is Taylor Swift Bypassing Canada on Her Global Tour?
Historic Moment: Edgars Rinkevics, EU's First Openly Gay Head of State, Takes Office as Latvia's President
Bye bye democracy, human rights, freedom: French Cops Can Now Secretly Activate Phone Cameras, Microphones And GPS To Spy On Citizens
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
Unilever Plummets in a $2.5 Billion Free Fall, to begin with: A Reckoning for Misuse of Corporate Power Against National Interest
Beyond the Blame Game: The Need for Nuanced Perspectives on America's Complex Reality
Twitter Targets Meta: A Tangle of Trade Secrets and Copycat Culture
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
The New French Revolution
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
×