OSHA cites Amazon for unsafe warehouses as injury numbers remain high

For years, Amazon warehouse staffers have complained about unsafe working conditions and the injury risks they face when rushing to fill packages and get them to customers in two days or less.

While Amazon claims its injury rate is coming down, facility-level data released last month from the U.S. Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration underscores worker concerns, showing that in 2022 Amazon laborers were injured at a rate of 6.9 for every 100. In January, OSHA investigators cited Amazon for “failing to keep workers safe.”

Industrywide numbers for last year won’t be released until November, but OSHA head Doug Parker said Amazon has a history of injury rates that are far higher than others in the warehouse category. In 2021, Amazon’s injury rate was almost 1.5 times the industry average. At some Amazon warehouse locations, Parker said, the rate was as high as 12 workers out of 100.

“That’s more than 10% of the workforce every year who are receiving injuries on the job that are serious enough that they have to take time away from their jobs,” Parker said, regarding those warehouses. “We know that it’s affecting thousands of workers and it’s very alarming.”

Bobby Gosvener is one former worker living with pain.

Gosvener worked at an Amazon warehouse in Tulsa, Oklahoma, until 2020. He said after a conveyor belt malfunctioned that December he was left with a herniated disk that required neck surgery. He’s now on permanent partial disability.

“I have to live with this injury for the rest of my life,” Gosvener said. “I hate to this day even to order through Amazon because it’s so convenient, but every time I look at a box, I think of the process of what went through it and who got hurt in the midst of it.”

Jennifer Crane works through pain at an Amazon warehouse in St. Peters, Missouri, after hurting her wrist in October. She said she tore a ligament from “packing a case of sparkling water repetitively all day, along with dog food and Gatorades.” She wears a brace to help her get through the day.

“After like two hours of heavy lifting, I’m taking pain meds,” Crane said.

She needs the job. Crane became a single mom to her seven sons when her husband died of a heart attack in 2019.

“I’ve got to be able to support them. I have bills to pay,” she said. Crane said she knows she could look for other work, “but right now I’m in the fight to try to make it better there for everybody.”

Crane is circulating a petition at her warehouse asking for a slower pace of work, more breaks, ergonomic changes and equipment updates. 

In response to those accounts of injury and pain, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said in a statement, “Amazon worked diligently to accommodate both employees and ensure they had what they needed not only to work safely but also to recover. Any claim to the contrary is false.”

Amazon’s self-reported injury rate fell 9%…