Will Evans:
Amazon, which is not unionized, closely guards records of serious injuries like Dixon’s. But federal regulations say the company must provide workers with the injury logs from their work sites.
So, with the help of Amazon employees around the country, we were able to obtain official injury records from 23 warehouses across 14 states, representing about 20 percent of Amazon’s fulfillment centers.
At these warehouses, we found that, last year, workers got seriously injured at more than double the industry average. In some facilities, it’s four or even six times that average. Serious injuries are those for which workers need to take time off or be restricted from certain tasks.
Amazon declined to be interviewed, but in an e-mail stated the rates are high because it diligently reports injuries, saying: “Amazon encourages the reporting of every incident, regardless of how small.”
It also said that rates of lost work time are high because Amazon takes an abundance of caution in not placing employees back at work before they are ready.
We showed our findings to a former Amazon safety manager, who asked us to hide his identity. He said last year’s injury rates at Dixon’s warehouse were much higher than they should be.
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