In America, Amazon only it produces almost the half of all occupational accidents in the logistics sector.
Amazon warehouse workers alone make up about a third of the total workforce employed in the U.S. logistics industry. It means that for every three Amazon warehouse workers, there are about seven other employees at other US companies. Nevertheless, about one in two industry injuries – 49% – occur at Amazon’s facilities.
It claims a Report Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of four American unions. The data comes from the government, specifically from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The unions denounce an untenable situation: according to the SOC, an Amazon warehouse worker has double the amount chance of injuries compared to colleagues from any other US company.
The report only considers the more serious injuries serious injuries’ ed.). All accidents that require either a period of illness or a significant reduction in workload and tasks are included in the definition.
This distinction also deserves a separate parenthesis: according to the study of the union members, Amazon would have less often given sick leave to injured warehouse workers over the years, rather a degradation – and with it the transition to tasks that require less physical effort, such as office activities.
Recovery times from injury are also higher: an Amazon employee needs 62 days of sick leave after a work accident, while the industry average stops at 44 days.
The Causes of Frequent Amazon Warehouse Accidents
The report was also made possible thanks to the many testimonies of the Amazon warehouse workers Amazon’s warehouses are inherently no more dangerous than the competition – there are no particularly dangerous machines, nor are there any employees to perform particularly difficult tasks.
The cause of such an abnormal number of accidents – say the giant’s employees – would depend almost entirely on the company’s known frenetic pace. Employees are constantly monitored and have to respect extremely fast work schedules. Anyone who does not meet the company’s expectations will be sent home.
In 2020, Amazon was forced to slow down the pace of work. Injuries have fallen drastically
The proof of this is that in 2020 the number of injuries has fallen drastically. Cause of Covid-19, which forced the company to lower the daily goals assigned to each warehouse worker. Thereafter, with the return to normal business rhythm, injuries increased again by 20% between late 2020 and early 2021. However, in 2021 – the report points out – injuries were less frequent than in 2019.
Response from Amazon
In a statement to The Verge magazine, Amazon partially disputed the report’s conclusions, arguing that the sudden increase in injuries following the easing of anti-Covid measures is attributed to the sudden hiring of new staff — with the resulting need to train dozens of people. of thousands of people, often in their first work experience.
“We hired tens of thousands of new people to help us meet the unprecedented demand for supplies that occurred during the early stages of the pandemic,” a company spokesperson said. “Like other companies in this industry, Amazon also saw a remarkable increase in occupational accidents between 2020 and 2021, also because we had to train many new employees. In any case, when the data from 2021 is compared with that from 2019, it is possible to observe an annual decrease in the number of accidents of 13%”.
An explanation that Amazon itself does not satisfy. The company’s goal – continues the spokesperson – is to bring injuries to zero as much as possible. “We still have a lot of work to do and we will not be satisfied until we have reduced the number of accidents and we can guarantee maximum safety for our employees”.
Source: Lega Nerd
