Employees at Amazon warehouses were 20% more likely to experience an injury in 2021 than the year before, a new report says.
Amazon employees continue to see their risks of injury rise, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Strategic Organizing Center, a labor union coalition. The organization found the marked increase from 2020 injuries through an analysis of federal injury data sent by Amazon to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
“Amazon workers sustained nearly 40,000 injuries in 2021. While Amazon employed 33% of all U.S. warehouse workers in 2021, the company was responsible for a staggering 49% of all injuries in the industry last year,” the center said in the report.
TIM COOK WARNS OF ‘PROFOUND’ UNINTENDED EFFECTS OF BIPARTISAN APP STORE BILL
An estimated 6.8 of every 100 Amazon warehouse workers experienced serious injuries in 2021, according to the report. In contrast, only 3.3 per 100 workers were seriously injured in 2021 at non-Amazon warehouses. The study defines a serious injury as any incident that forced a worker to be placed on light duty or miss work entirely.
The rate of injuries increased year-over-year between 2017 and 2019, only for it to dip slightly in 2020 in part due to the pandemic. However, the increased number of injuries when compared to non-Amazon warehouses appeared to stay consistent, according to data reviewed by the Washington Post in June 2021.
Automated warehouses were also bad for employee health. Serious injury rates were almost 30% higher at facilities with robotic workers, possibly a consequence of humans being prompted to keep up with robots, the report found.
Amazon has been criticized for its handling of working conditions within its warehouses, with at least one lawsuit accusing the company of putting “profits over safety” in times of crisis. The company announced in 2021 that it would invest more than $300 million in an attempt to expand amazon’s WorkingWell program and cut “recordable incident rates” by 50% by 2025.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Amazon pays its interns three times more than the majority of its warehouse and delivery workers, a report released on April 5 found.
Amazon warehouse workers have responded to their suboptimal work conditions by seeking to unionize. An Amazon warehouse in New York voted in favor of unionizing on April 1.
