STATEMENT on Amazon’s self-reported injury data from the Athena Coalition, Missouri Workers Center, Warehouse Worker Resource Center:

Amazon cannot be trusted to keep workers safe, and it cannot be trusted to report its own injury data. The company is under active investigation by OSHA, the Department of Justice, and the Chairman of the Senate HELP Committee. Washington State found that the company has willfully violated worker safety laws in the state. OSHA has cited the corporation multiple times for under- and otherwise mis-reporting its injury data. And, a recent study from the University of Illinois-Chicago (UIC) suggests that injury rates are far higher than previously understood. Alarmingly, researchers from UIC found that nearly half of Amazon workers report being injured on the job.

Here are some specific issues with Amazon’s “safety” report:

Misleading comparisons: Amazon has chosen to compare a reported injury rate for its warehouses of 6.9 in 2022 and 6.5 in 2023 to the 2022 BLS average for warehouses with more than 1,000 employees, arguing that Amazon’s injury rates are closely comparable to the average rate for that category (6.8). However, this comparison is inappropriate because Amazon warehouses comprise such a large portion of that category—71 percent—that Amazon has an outsize effect on the average rate. Indeed, the injury rate for non-Amazon warehouses in that category (with more than 1,000 employees) was only 3.6 in 2022.

Omission of data: Amazon emphasizes improvements in its “lost time” rate (the rate of injuries that require missed days of work). However, the company does not report on another related metric–the “light duty” rate, or the rate of injuries that require job transfer. Previous reports have presented evidence to suggest that Amazon may be shifting cases that would otherwise have been classified as “lost time” to “light duty” in order to save money on workers compensation.

Claiming improvement while leading the field in injuries: While there are fewer OSHA reported injuries than in 2019, when it reached a highwater mark of 9.0 injuries per 100 FTE, Amazon still far outpaces most other U.S. warehouse employers in the frequency and severity of injuries. Previous research from the Strategic Organizing Center and the National Employment Law Project has repeatedly demonstrated this pattern.

Underreporting injuries: The extent of underreporting of injuries has been well documented at Amazon by both OSHA and academic researchers. In fact, the Department of Justice is investigating the company for “a fraudulent scheme designed to hide the true number of injuries”.

Crediting itself for mandated regulations: Amazon also congratulates itself on ergonomic improvements in 2023 but fails to mention that many of those improvements were changes mandated by OSHA citations of the company in the last few years. Many of those improvements have only been implemented in selected facilities, and not across the board at all Amazon warehouses.

We are concerned that Amazon is using these reports to mislead workers, shareholders, journalists, and lawmakers. Additionally, we understand that over the past few years Amazon has requested journalists disclose the names of their sources, lobbied legislatures against taking action on health and safety, and bullied journalists reporting on the injury crisis.

If the company cared about safety, it would listen to workers about the unsafe pace of work, negotiate a contract with the Amazon Labor Union, and cease actions that erode the very public agencies tasked with protecting workers.

STATEMENT from Wendy Taylor, STL8 worker and organizing committee member:

_These types of reports are nothing but distractions from the real issue at the center of Amazon’s injury crisis: their unsustainable and inhumane work rates that break our bodies down and speed up our aging.

I’ve been hurt at Amazon. They downplayed my injury and have delayed approving the surgery I need. They hope I’ll quit, but I won’t. Instead, I joined many of my coworkers in filing an OSHA complaint last year. Recently, the agency cited Amazon five times for failing to report injuries at STL8, and the company has been cited for safety violations all over the country.

If Amazon is so confident they are keeping us safe, why didn’t they agree to the third-party safety audit workers proposed at their shareholder meeting last year? Amazon can’t be trusted to report on its own injury crisis.

The bottom line is Amazon says their warehouses are safe, but their own numbers show they’re more dangerous than other warehouses; the largest survey of workers report that their warehouses aren’t safe; and federal regulators have told Amazon their warehouses aren’t safe. They need to focus more of their resources on actually protecting workers and less on smoke and mirrors._