OSHA prices Amazon with unsafe work circumstances at three warehouses

The U.S. Division of Labor yesterday cited e-commerce big Amazon for exposing staff at three of its warehouses to unsafe circumstances and ergonomic hazards, and has proposed a fantastic of $46,875.

Amazon warehouse staff skilled excessive charges of musculoskeletal issues throughout their employment on the services in Aurora, Colorado; Nampa, Idaho; and Castleton, New York, based on the division’s Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA). The inspections observe referrals from the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York that led the company to open inspections and discover comparable violations final 12 months at three further Amazon warehouse services in Florida, Illinois, and New York.

In any respect six places, OSHA investigators discovered Amazon uncovered its warehouse staff to a excessive threat of low again accidents and different issues, because of 4 circumstances:

• excessive frequency with which staff should elevate packages and different gadgets.

• heavy weight of the gadgets dealt with by staff.

• staff awkwardly twisting, bending, and increasing themselves to elevate gadgets.

• lengthy hours required to finish assigned duties.

“Amazon’s working strategies are creating hazardous work circumstances and processes, resulting in critical employee accidents,” Assistant Secretary for Occupational Security and Well being Doug Parker mentioned in a launch. “They should take these accidents critically and implement a company-wide technique to guard their staff from these well-known and preventable hazards.” 

The accusation follows the same OSHA cost on January 18 that Amazon had failed to offer secure workplaces and exposing staff to ergonomic hazards at warehouse services in Deltona, Florida; Waukegan, Illinois; and New Windsor, New York. OSHA urged a $60,269 fantastic for that discovering. OSHA additionally charged in December that Amazon had didn’t correctly file some work-related accidents and sicknesses on the identical six websites.

In response to the January 18 letter, Amazon had acknowledged that these citations have been critical, however identified that OSHA had not issued “willful citations,” that are the company’s highest stage of offense.

“We take the security and well being of our staff very critically, and we strongly disagree with these allegations and intend to enchantment. We’ve cooperated totally, and the federal government’s allegations don’t mirror the fact of security at our websites,” Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson, mentioned in an e mail.

“During the last a number of months we’ve demonstrated the extent to which we work day by day to mitigate threat and shield our individuals, and our publicly out there knowledge present we’ve diminished harm charges practically 15% between 2019 and 2021. What’s extra, the overwhelming majority of our staff inform us they really feel our office is secure. We look ahead to sharing extra throughout our enchantment concerning the quite a few security improvements, course of enhancements, and investments we’re making to additional scale back accidents. We all know there’ll at all times be methods for us to enhance even additional, and we are going to—we’ll by no means cease working to be safer for our staff,” Nantel mentioned.