Amazon saw almost half of all injuries in U.S. warehouses in 2021, unions say

Nearly half of all injuries recorded in U.S. stores in 2021 occurred on Amazon, according to a report released Tuesday by a coalition of unions.

“Amazon employed a third of all warehouse workers in the U.S., but was responsible for nearly half (49%) of all injuries in the warehouse industry,” according to the Strategic Organization Center report (I AM).

The report said Amazon’s U.S. workers suffered more than 34,000 “serious injuries” at work last year, a rate more than double that of stores that did not belong to the e-commerce giant.

The coalition said it relies on data provided by Amazon to the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Administration, the federal agency responsible for preventing occupational injuries.

The group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from AFP.

“After relaxing some of his discipline systems during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemicAmazon re-implemented its control systems and production pressures by the end of 2020, and its injury rates increased substantially, ”the SOC said.

Hiring on Amazon has increased during the pandemic.

In the United States, the company has grown from about 700 in 2020 to more than 900 in 2021 and from more than 200,000 employees in 2017 to more than 560,000 in 2021, according to the report.

In June 2021, Amazon changed working conditions in its U.S. locations, including longer breaks for its workers who prepare, ship, and deliver packages.

This decision came after a previous report from the convicted SOC and a attempt at unionization at an Amazon store in Alabama. This failed, but the campaign exposed what many employees described as the hellish pace of the company.

“We need a better vision for the success of our employees,” wrote Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in an annual letter to shareholders in 2020.

“We will be the best entrepreneur on Earth and the safest job on Earth,” he promised.

But “in stark contrast to Jeff Bezos’ recent promise … the injury rate at Amazon’s facilities increased by 20 percent between 2020 and 2021,” the SOC said.

In March, workers at a JFK warehouse in New York voted in favor of launching the first U.S. union on Amazon.

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