“Amazon workers are injured much more often than their competitors”

The Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a nonprofit organization that improves working conditions, has released data showing that Amazon warehouse workers are injured significantly more often than those who work for their competitors.

According to data released by the SOC, in 2020, 5.9 out of 100 workers in Amazon warehouses were seriously injured, 2.6 were off work, and 3.3 were forced to engage in light work. Meanwhile, in the case of Amazon’s competitor, Wal-Mart, the number of serious injuries was 2.6 out of 100. In addition, the ratio of all non-Amazon warehouse workers is 3.3 out of 100, so Amazon warehouse workers have an 80% higher rate of serious injuries than other warehouse workers.

The SOC writes that Amazon’s obsession with speed is forcing its employees to make great sacrifices, and that the time has come for Amazon to take responsibility for the dangerous working conditions it has created. He criticized the high rate of injury to Amazon warehouse workers. In 2002, more than 27,000 Amazon warehouse workers were injured.

Amazon employees have been vocal about the high rate of injuries at work for years, and in 2019 more than 100 workers at Amazon warehouses in the New York port of Staten Island complained that Amazon workplace safety was a secondary concern.

Amazon warehouse workers aren’t the only ones complaining about the working environment. In 2020, 9.7 out of 100 Amazon delivery drivers will be seriously injured on the job. On the other hand, the proportion of UPS, a logistics competitor, was 6.5 out of 100. There is also a report that an Amazon delivery man is in a situation where he has to urinate in a plastic bottle due to too much work.

Amazon did not dispute the reports released by the SOC, but said it was taking steps to reduce employee injuries. In addition, the Washington Post, which was acquired by Amazon Chairman Jeff Bezos, based on the latest data surveyed by OSHA, the U.S. Department of Labor and Occupational Safety and Health Agency, rather than SOC data, that for 200,000 hours of work in Amazon warehouses in the U.S., the fatality rate was 5.9. . This is the same rate of slander as the data released by the SOC.

A comparison of Amazon warehouse workers and other warehouse workers with serious injuries, released by the Washington Post based on OSHA data, shows that the Amazon warehouse worker injury rate is declining from 2017 to 2020, but the injury rate is twice as high as other warehouse workers. Related information can be found here.