Federal workplace safety investigators are investigating the death of an Amazon worker and a potentially fatal injury to another employee, adding to a the investigation is already underway following a death during the company’s annual Prime Day shopping event in mid-July.
The three Amazon workers who died in the past month were employed at the company’s New Jersey facility.
New investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration are putting new scrutiny on injury rates and workplace safety procedures at Amazon, which advocates for work and safety. they have been criticizing for a long time as inappropriate.
Labor Department spokeswoman Denisha Braxton confirmed Thursday that the most recent death occurred last week at an Amazon facility in Monroe Township, about 20 miles northeast of Trenton. The second investigation is looking into a July 24 accident at an Amazon facility in Robbinsville. The worker involved in that accident died three days later, according to Braxton.
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In a statement, Robbinsville Police Chief Michael Polaski said police responded to the warehouse, named PNE5, on July 24 after receiving a report that a worker fell from a three-foot ladder and was he hit his head.
Polaski said the worker was conscious and alert when police arrived. But police were told other workers had performed CPR on the person before their arrival, he said. The person was taken to a hospital and OSHA was notified of the incident the same day, he added.
Monroe Township police did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the incident.
The two most recent deaths were first reported by the USA Today Network.
OSHA officials declined to provide additional information about any of the deaths, citing the open investigations. The agency has up to six months to complete each probe.
Sam Stephenson, a spokesman for Seattle-based Amazon, said in a statement that the company was “deeply saddened by the death of our colleagues and offer our condolences to their family and friends.”
“Our investigations are ongoing and we are cooperating with OSHA, which is conducting its own reviews of the events, as it often does in these situations,” Stephenson said.
Death of a Prime Day worker
Last month, OSHA launched another investigation into a death of a worker in an Amazon warehouse in Carteret, New Jersey during the company’s Prime Day shopping event, which turned out to be the largest in the company’s history. Federal officials have not released further details about the death, but news reports have identified the worker as 42-year-old Rafael Reynaldo Mota Frias.
An Amazon spokesman said the company’s internal investigation into Carteret’s death “was not a work-related incident, but was related to a personal illness.”
“OSHA is investigating the incident and, based on the evidence we currently have, we expect it will reach the same conclusion,” the spokesman said.
Broader probe into security conditions
The deaths of Amazon workers come as the company grapples a wider probe by OSHA and federal prosecutors under safe conditions at various warehouses across the country. The civil investigation stems from several allegations involving workplace hazards at Amazon facilities, which the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York referred to the Department of Labor. OSHA representatives inspected Amazon warehouses in the Chicago, New York and Orlando areas in late July.
The U.S. attorney’s civil division is also investigating safety hazards at Amazon warehouses and “fraudulent conduct designed to conceal injuries from OSHA and others,” according to a spokesman for the office.
An Amazon warehouse in Illinois it collapsed in a tornado in December of last year. In April, OSHA said the warehouse “meets minimum federal safety guidelines for storm protection.”
The family of Austin McEwen, 26, an Amazon delivery driver who died in the collapse, filed a lawsuit against the online retail giant in January. McEwen was one of six workers killed when an EF-3 tornado struck Amazon’s 1.1 million-square-foot fulfillment warehouse in Edwardsville, Illinois, on Dec. 10.
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