{"id":200222,"date":"2021-06-05T18:06:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T23:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/06\/05\/amazon-is-evil-part-12%e2%81%b9\/"},"modified":"2021-06-05T18:06:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T23:06:00","slug":"amazon-is-evil-part-12%e2%81%b9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/06\/05\/amazon-is-evil-part-12%e2%81%b9\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon is Evil, Part 12\u2079"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>I am not at all surprised that, Amazon’s warehouses have an 80% higher injury rate than the industry norm<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This is completely not a surprise:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n

Employees at US Amazon warehouses are injured at a higher rate than those doing similar jobs at other companies’ warehouses, a new report has found. <\/p>\n

A union-backed study of safety data found Amazon workers had 5.9 serious injuries per 100 people – almost 80% higher than the rest of the industry. <\/p>\n

The study’s organisers blamed Amazon’s “obsession with speed” as a main cause of the problem. <\/p>\n

It is the latest in a string of controversies around worker safety. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

This new study comes from the Strategic Organizing Center (SOC), a coalition of labour unions. It analysed workplace safety data reported to the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration from 2017 to 2020.<\/p>\n

It found that “workers at Amazon warehouses are not only injured more frequently than in non-Amazon warehouses, they are also injured more severely”. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

And compared to its largest retail competitor Walmart, Amazon’s overall injury rate was more than double, at 6.5 per 100 employees compared with three.<\/p>\n

An independent analysis of the same data by The Washington Post<\/i><\/a> reached similar conclusions.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Post<\/i> conducted its own analysis of the OSHA data, and came to the same conclusions.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/i>is owned by Amazon chief Jeff Bezos, so this qualifies as a statement against its own interest..<\/p>\n

The SOC characterised the report as an “epidemic of workplace injuries”.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n

But technology news site Motherboard has this week published an Amazon warehouse pamphlet<\/a> issued under the “working well” branding, which tells workers they should think of themselves as “industrial athletes”.<\/p>\n

“Just like an athlete who trains for an event, industrial athletes need to prepare their bodies to be able to perform their best at work,” it warns. <\/p>\n

“Some positions will walk up to 13 miles a day… [others] will have a total of 20,000lb (9,072kg) lifted before they complete their shift,” it said. <\/p>\n

The pamphlet, from a Tulsa warehouse, also offers tips on health and fitness. It encourages exercise on days off, a good diet to fuel the 400 calories an hour the company expects employees to burn, and tips on buying shoes to fit swollen feet from the active working environment. <\/p>\n

Amazon told Motherboard that the pamphlet had been created in error and removed – though the employee who gave it to the publication said it was available on-site for months. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, it appears that Amazon thinks that its employees should be Olympians, and sets metrics accordingly.<\/p>\n

Your Amazon order is literally being paid for with the blood of its employees.<\/p>\n

It’s time to find another online marketplace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am not at all surprised that, Amazon’s warehouses have an 80% higher injury rate than the industry norm. This is completely not a surprise: Employees at US Amazon warehouses are injured at a higher rate than those doing similar jobs at other companies’ warehouses, a new report has found. A union-backed study of safety …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1279,969,1051,1216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amazon","category-evil","category-hypocrisy","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200222\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}