Amazon Workers Made Up Almost Half of All Warehouse Injuries Last Year (theverge.com) 60
Amazon workers only make up a third of US warehouse employees, but in 2021, they suffered 49 percent of the injuries for the entire warehouse industry, according to a report by advocacy group Strategic Organizing Center (or SOC). The Verge reports: After analyzing data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the union coalition found that Amazon workers are twice as likely to be seriously injured than people who work in warehouses for other companies. The report considers "serious injuries" to be ones where workers either have to take time off to recover or have their workloads reduced, following OSHA's report classification (pdf) of "cases with days away from work" and "cases with job transfer or restriction." The data shows that, over time, the company has been shifting more toward putting people on light duty, rather than having them take time off. The report authors also note that Amazon workers take longer to recover from injuries than employees at other companies: around 62 days on average, versus 44 across the industry.
Amazon employees have said it's not the work itself that's particularly dangerous but rather the grueling pace the company's automated systems demand. Amazon actually had workers go slower in 2020 to help combat COVID-19, which accounts for the notably lower injury rates that year. But, as the report notes, the injuries increased by around 20 percent between 2020 and 2021 as the company resumed its usual pace -- though the injury rates for 2021 were still lower than they were in 2019. [...] Unfortunately, this study's results tell the same story we've been hearing for years. Even with its reduced injury rates in 2020, Amazon workers were still hurt twice as often as other warehouse workers, according to SOC. Further reading: Amazon Workers At 100 More Facilities Want To Unionize (Yahoo Finance)
Amazon employees have said it's not the work itself that's particularly dangerous but rather the grueling pace the company's automated systems demand. Amazon actually had workers go slower in 2020 to help combat COVID-19, which accounts for the notably lower injury rates that year. But, as the report notes, the injuries increased by around 20 percent between 2020 and 2021 as the company resumed its usual pace -- though the injury rates for 2021 were still lower than they were in 2019. [...] Unfortunately, this study's results tell the same story we've been hearing for years. Even with its reduced injury rates in 2020, Amazon workers were still hurt twice as often as other warehouse workers, according to SOC. Further reading: Amazon Workers At 100 More Facilities Want To Unionize (Yahoo Finance)
They need an union badly rate leads to injury (Score:2)
They need an union badly rate leads to injury.
When you have Amazon rate system people rush to make it and they don't work safely.
Re: (Score:1)
Missing context: What percentage of warehouse workers does Amazon employ in the US? Almost half?
Are you a fucking moron? I'm guessing the answer is yes since you posted this gem and you post at a default -1 so have probably posted a bunch of stupid shit in the past. It's LITERALLY the first sentence in the summary:
Compensation (Score:4, Insightful)
I would be happy to add an extra few dollars to my Amazon orders to give extra money to these people. I appreciate the work they do. Same goes for the drivers.
Unfortunately, there is no mechanism available for me to do so. If the cost of the product went up, it would just end up in the pocket of shareholders. (Needless to say, while I appreciate the work the shareholders have done, they are overcompensated for their effort).
union is the Compensation and the higher cost will (Score:2)
union is the Compensation and the higher cost will to go the workers
Re: (Score:3)
Hopefully the unions can be good for their employees.
Re: (Score:2)
To the people who believe that unions are for workers who are greedy, this proves counter to that claim. Amazon workers are asking to address work place conditions that lead to these statistics.
Re: (Score:2)
I see nothing wrong with workers being greedy. Their employers are.
Re: (Score:2)
You can always opt for slower shipping when available. Presumably it at least gives the person a little extra time to get your stuff. It's just this side of nothing, but since you can't tip them directly or anything, it's all you've really got short of not buying from Amazon.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Presumably it at least gives the person a little extra time to get your stuff
That's an absolutely ridiculous and moronic presumption.
It is just a longer time before the computer puts the order into the fill queue. Everything else is the same. It is no different for the warehouse worker than if you had ordered it a few days later.
Re: (Score:2)
If the algorithm has to prioritise your shipment over the otherwise most efficient solution, it might (shock, horror!) give a minute of breathing space here and there to some person.
Re: Compensation (Score:2)
It may "allow" for it, but that's not the way it is implemented.
Even fast shipping "allows" for long breaks. That requires hiring more workers, to have them work at a slower pace with time for longer breaks. Clearly, it's more economical right now for Amazon to have both a fast work pace and higher than average injury rate. Maybe it shouldn't be.
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure who pissed in your cheerios this morning, but I hope your day gets better form here. There's already a glut of keyboard warriors on the Internet and we really don't need any more.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
If you can't tell it is blatantly and obviously stupid, you might also be an idiot.
Re: (Score:2)
How about just buying somewhere else? I haven't bought from them in at least 10 years, and I don't want for anything.
Anyway, from what I understand their pay is pretty normal for warehouse work. But we see the working conditions (rushed to the point of being unsafe) are not.
Re: (Score:2)
How about just buying somewhere else? I haven't bought from them in at least 10 years, and I don't want for anything.
Anyway, from what I understand their pay is pretty normal for warehouse work. But we see the working conditions (rushed to the point of being unsafe) are not.
This, a hundred times this. It's the capitalist way of handling these kind of things, so it, you know, actually works. Plus, it'll also help diversify the market, which is also a good thing.
Paying into some sort of charity fund for Amazon workers (if such a thing existed) would only increase the attractiveness of Amazon as a workplace, allowing them to decrease wages/safety/everything further.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
How is that against eBay's terms? They're just drop shipping stuff.
Though, in a few of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"I would be happy to add an extra few dollars to my Amazon orders"
Or, you can spend a few extra dollars for your purchase at a retail small business instead of Amazon, and benefit your local community and the employees that are probably a lot more well taken care of.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of what I buy on Amazon isn't available locally.
Re: (Score:2)
It sounds like dangerous work and nothing fit for people to be forced to do. I would be more than happy to add a few dollars to each purchase on Amazon if it went to automating the entire process and letting these people go so they can find safe, rewarding careers outside of this "sweatshop" warehouse. For their own good of course.
Re: (Score:2)
According to TFA, workers in Amazon's more highly automated warehouses were even more likely to get injured.
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like they need to go ahead and complete the process. You can't have injured workers if you don't have any workers!
Re: (Score:2)
Dull dangerous tasks beg for automation (Score:2)
The fix for manual labor is to end the need for manual labor which is inherently bad (and not to be confused with optional exercise tailored to individual health).
Finish automating Amazon and everyone wins.
Re: (Score:3)
Finish automating, broadly, and you'll have to put half the population on welfare or UBI. Or just let them starve to death. Both of those scenarios present difficulties for Amazon. They'd either have to start paying taxes, or a good chunk of their customer base would die out.
You say hypothetically that "everyone wins" with automation, but the fact is, Amazon already wins. It's entirely possible they are content with the #1 spot, and would rather not change the game and risk losing.
Amazon is in a lot of busi
Re: (Score:2)
No one's talking about refusing to work, but rather about not having work available. If that were to happen, those who refuse to starve would be coming after you.
Re: (Score:1)
I don't want a nasty Mad-Max style society. If machines can do most the real work, then we don't need dog-eat-dog pressure anymore. We just need smarter allocation of wealth and resources instead of letting it trickle up to the bot owners and letting the rest claw about for scraps.
Re: (Score:3)
> Finish automating, broadly, and you'll have to put half the population on welfare or UBI.
We have to change the way we view work and income and stop demonizing unemployment. We need a system that welcomes bots taking grunt-work away from people: post-industrial socialism.
We can assign part-time "civic tasks" to welfare recipients such as "soft" child-care via watch-only so that expensive training is not required (a professional "handler" is still on duty), "watch only" neighborhood patrol*, jury duty,
Re: (Score:2)
No, Walmart does have warehouses, and they're not the stores. What Walmart stores do not have that stores decades ago regularly did is big stockrooms to hold merchandise that was not on display (yet).
In other news: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Never Understood (Score:3)
I get that Amazon uses a system of just finding any free space for objects instead of everything having a place, which, fine whatever. What I don't get is why they don't just assign workers to a specific zone within the warehouse and pick orders go to people assigned to whatever zone the item is in. As opposed to making someone potentially run from the far end of the warehouse to the other and only giving them like two minutes to do that and get whatever random item someone ordered. If you had an entirely automated warehouse, you wouldn't have robots zipping all over the place like that, you'd have maybe one robot per aisle or every couple of aisles.
seems ambiguous (Score:2)
Gotta wonder... (Score:4, Interesting)
A lot of workplace injuries go unreported because employees are afraid of retribution, or because the companies 'take care of' the matter themselves to avoid government involvement. I suspect this happens more at Amazon than in other workplaces, just because Amazon are such bastards when it comes to scrutiny of any kind. So perhaps the difference between 'Zon and the rest of the warehouse industry is even higher than the analysis suggests?
"Only"? (Score:4, Insightful)
That a third of warehouse employees in the USA work for Amazon does not seem to be an appropriate use of "only". That's a large percentage for one company.
Re: "Only"? (Score:2)
I think the third of warehouse workers employed by Amazon was meant to be compared with the 49% of total warehouse industry injuries. The article was about injury rates, and not market share, so in that context, the word makes sense.
Is the reporting threshold the same? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Did anyone check? Gosh it's almost like it's the first line of TFS.
I'm amazed at how much people are desperate to dive in and defend Amazon.
Re: (Score:2)
I actually worked in a UK one and they were paying well above the minimum wage that every other warehouse pays, overtime was like time and a half maybe double time, with the basic at like £9/10 p/h iirc. You did get worked hard, but it just basically meant you couldnt stand around and talk (even then, if you got ahead, you could stop for a chat). I certainly dont want to defend Bezos but for absolute certain there are shitter warehouse jobs out there, Amazon is probably one of the better deals in tha
Re: (Score:2)
Tldr; if you think its shit working at an Amazon warehouse, other warehouses are much shitter.
In the UK perhaps, but according to TFA, you're substantially more likely to get injured in a US one compared to other warehouses.
Re: (Score:2)
Did anyone check? Gosh it's almost like it's the first line of TFS.
I'm amazed at how much people are desperate to dive in and defend Amazon.
Clearly you don't read stats well, or are just having a knee jerk reaction.
The first line just quotes a percentage of the injuries in the industry, but that doesn't say anything about what the basis is. If Amazon has 49% of the injuries, but it's 99% of the industry, it's a really low rate of injuries, if it is only 1% of the industry, it's a high number. The title is meaningless as written.
A percentage of an unknown population is impossible to interpret meaningfully.
The only somewhat meaningful data
Percentage? (Score:2)
These stats always sound bad until you dig in.
What percentage of total warehouse workers where this information is taken from are Amazon?
Re: Percentage? (Score:2)
If only the answer was in TFS/TFA. Oh wait, it is.
Really? (Score:2)
Almost all letter-carriers bit by dogs are working for the US postal system.
That company must be very bad.
Re: Really? (Score:2)
And almost no one reads TFS/TFA, either.
Re: (Score:2)
"And almost no one reads TFS/TFA, either."
With your 5 figure uid you KNOW we can't RTFS nor (gasp) RTFA.
Going to need some more info (Score:2)
One possibility: are we comparing busy Amazon warehouses to a group including the warehouses of dying moribund companies?
Need to make sure the comparison is apples to apples.
Small Companies Don't Report (Score:2)
Most of this is just that small companies dont report injuries. I worked for a construction company that if you fell off the roof of the building you either took personal time, or they paid you to come in and sit in a chair for weeks. The cost to small businesses is so astronomical that the will do pretty much anything to not report. I think their is a set number of injuries you can have before they are in a new higher regulated category or something like that. Amazon was probably in that category the first
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong statistic (Score:2)
Number of employees is the wrong comparison. The right one is hours worked by employees in non-desk jobs. So, now the news is useless because wrong number was used.
really? (Score:2)
Correction: "they suffered 49 percent of the REPORTED injuries for the entire warehouse industry,"
always keep grains of salt handy when a narrative is at play.
Easy answer! (Score:2)
Fire each person who has an accident and hire less clumsy replacements. Eventually your safety record will be impeccable!