Amazon employees accounted for nearly half of all warehouse injuries last year

According to a report by the Advocacy Group Strategic Organizing Center (or SOC), Amazon employees are only a third of US warehouse workers, but in 2021, were responsible for 49 percent of injuries for the entire warehouse industry. After analyzing Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) data, the union coalition found that Amazon employees were twice as likely to be seriously injured as those working in warehouses at other companies.

The report considers "serious injuries" where workers have to take time off to recover or have a reduced workload, adding OSHA's report classification (PDF) to "a matter of days of work" and "job transfer or considered as a restriction". The data shows that, over time, the company is moving towards keeping people on light duty instead of taking time off. The report's authors also note that Amazon employees take longer to recover from injuries than employees at other companies: about 62 days on average, versus 44 across the industry.

Amazon employees have said it's not the job that's particularly dangerous, but the dire demands on the company's automated system. Amazon actually slashed workers in 2020 to help combat COVID-19, which accounted for a particularly low injury rate that year. But, as the report noted, injuries increased by about 20 percent between 2020 and 2021 as the company resumed its normal range of motion – although the injury rate for 2021 was still higher than in 2019. was less.

It's also worth noting that even with the slow pace of work in 2020, Amazon has been criticized for how it treated workers in its response to COVID-19, particularly in New York, where organizers have been asked to restock the company's warehouses. has been asked to reinstate. I got inspired to work towards forming a union. , New York Attorney General Letitia James has also filed a lawsuit against Amazon, alleging that it failed to protect workers and after they spoke out against them (which included firing lead organizer Christian Smalls) retaliation. action taken. Of.

Unfortunately, the results of this study tell the same story we've been hearing for years. According to the SOC, despite its low injury rate in 2020, Amazon employees were still injured twice as many as other warehouse workers. Tuesday's report also suggests that Amazon's human workers (whom it calls "industrial athletes") are automatically at greater risk for injuries when working in warehouses -- a fact that Amazon knew years ago, According to internal documents. As CNBC points out, Amazon says it wants to be the safest place to work, but the company may need to overhaul its entire system to meet that goal.

Amazon did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment on the report.