Amazon ’s most recent example of double digit growth likely is n’t one it ’s eager to tell shareholders .
Last year Amazon facility workers endured intimately 40,000 injury , with the fellowship recording a 20 % addition in its overall injury pace between 2020 - 2021 . Just around one-half ( 49 % ) of all U.S. warehouse proletarian injuries last twelvemonth take Amazon workers . By those metrics , Amazon ’s the unchallenged power of workplace hurt .
Those alarming figures come by elbow room of a new Strategic Organizing Centerreportwhich analyzed 2021 Amazon harm data submitted to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( Occupational Safety and Health Administration ) . Aside from the shocking rise in injury rate , the report card found Amazon workers were disclose to importantly more potential risk than other warehouse doer . To put that into perspective , Amazon ’s 2021 serious injury charge per unit came out to 6.8 per 100 workers , more than double the 3.3 per 100 charge per unit for non - Amazon workers .

Photo: Scott Olson (Getty Images)
89 % of the 38,334 recorded injuries were reportedly so severe they either left workers unable to do their normal functions or forced them to pretermit work altogether . combat injury rates were also reportedly higher at Amazon ’s largely automatonlike , machinelike storage warehouse than their less machine-controlled situation , despite previousclaimsfrom the troupe that more mechanization would lead to increase safety for its human doer . Overall , Amazon workers on medium ask around 19 more days to recover from their injuries than workers at non - Amazon storage warehouse adroitness .
In reaction to questions from Gizmodo , an Amazon interpreter acknowledged the rise in 2021 injury but articulate it was partially the upshot of the company training a disc act of newfangled hire .
“ Like other fellowship in the industry , we see an increase in recordable injuries during this meter from 2020 to 2021 as we trained so many new people — however , when you compare 2021 to 2019 , our recordable wound charge per unit decline more than 13 % year over year , ” the voice said . “ While we still have more study to do and wo n’t be satisfied until we are first-class when it comes to safety , we continue to make measurable improvements in reducing injuries and keep employee secure , and take account the work from all of our employee and condom teams who are lead to this effort . ”

The SOC report impute Amazon ’s high trauma charge per unit , in part , to its ill-famed emphasis on speed . The company has seen consumer demand for goodsskyrocketsince the beginning of the pandemic . Amazon respond too soon on by hiring arecordnumber of new employees and has solidified its system of on - site monitoring andproductivity trackersto keep a steadfast flow of orders spew out its facilities .
Amazon proletarian and outside critic have , for years , spoken out against the companies ’ use of automated trailing software used todetermine“time off task ” and other productivityclaimingthey’re left feel more like robots than the great unwashed .
Those concerns have n’t always resonated with the company ’s upper management to say the least . As one of his last acts as CEO before hand over the reins to Andy Jassy , Jeff Bezos proposed a novel root to Amazon ’s pesky , persistent injury job . Rather than opting to give worker tenacious breaks or reduce output expected value , the world ’s second richest valet suggested in aletter to shareholdersthat Amazon or else implement “ sophisticated algorithm ” to precisely monitor workers ’ muscle groups and automatically rotate workers over to undertaking require unlike muscle groups before their tax meat machines ’ laboured bodies contribute out out .

Some Amazon workers sense change in the air
Amazon ’s uncomplimentary workplace safety figures come as some of its employee take matters into their own hands . Earlier this month a group of warehouse workers in Amazon ’s JFK8 fulfilment center in Staten Island , New York voted 2,654 - 2,131 toform a union , the first of its kind at the company and a major puff to the very spot that hadfoughttooth and nail to preclude retiring unions . Amazon Labor Union labor organizer formed the union , in part , as a direct response to what they ascertain as unsafe shape conditions and inhumane workplace monitoring apparatuses .
Predictably , Amazon has sincefiledan objection to a Staten Island storage warehouse ’s conglutination right to vote . Amazon claims union organizers threatened employees to storm them into voting yes and allegedly threatened prole with the claims they may lose welfare if they did n’t vote for the union . Meanwhile , around 1,000 miles in the south in Bessemer , Alabama , the Retail , Wholesale and Department Store UnionaccusedAmazon of illegally interfering ( again ) with a warehouse trades union vote there .
AmazonAndy JassyGizmodoJeff Bezos

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