Since opening in September 2018 , Amazon ’s massive fulfilment nub on New York ’s Staten Island has gather a reputation as grueling and unsafe , even among a logistics web loosely pick apart as such . Now , leak out company documents bring out that injury rates at the warehouse , sleep with as JFK8 , are over three multiplication the industry average . What ’s unclear is if these numbers are at all anomalous compared to Amazon ’s other adroitness .
“ When you crunch those basic numbers from Amazon ’s own submission , it ’s staggering , ” Frank Kearl , a stave lawyer with nonprofit Make the Road , tell Gizmodo . “ They have higher pace of injury , and the injury themselves are incredibly stern , compared to the national average , compared to the national warehouse average , and compare to industries that are known for being very grievous like solid waste collection , policing . [ … ] Amazon get it on it has an accidental injury crisis going on at the JFK8 facility . ”
The source of this data is the benign - sounding Occupational Safety and Health Administration ( OSHA ) 300 and 300a kind . The former is fill up out and defer by management any time injuries of a sure severity occur , while the latter aggregates all incidents and is reported at the terminal of each yr . Beyond giving Occupational Safety and Health Administration a chick ’s eye view of internal and industry course , “ it also is a way that business are able to chase their own data point to see what trouble they have in their facilities so they can fulfill their duty under the natural law to protect their workforce from injuries , ” Kearl enounce .
Photo: JOHANNES EISELE (Getty)
plug the info contained in the forms into Occupational Safety and Health Administration ’s ownincident charge per unit calculator , JFK8 scored a whopping 15.19 in 2018 . Forcontrast , in 2018 , sawmills scored a 6.1 ; steel metalworks : 10.2 .
These internally produced and government - mandated numbers also supportresearchproduced by the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health , a nonprofit organization that serve up as an industry watchdog , last month . “ The Amazon SI facility injury and illness charge per unit is [ … ] a stunning 3 times as high as the norm for all other warehouses nationwide , ” states the report , which extrapolate its determination from surveys and consultation with 145 workers . Amazon bluffly brush off the determination as “ biased and unreliable,”calling the report“an example of selective data skewed to patronise fake statements by an organisation that ’s sole business objective is to misinform the populace on Amazon ’s safety record . ”
While OSHA 300 and 300a datum is not like a shot usable to the populace , any current or former Amazon employee can submit a petition for the logs in written material or by netmail the facilities or HR director of their construction , accord to Zachary Lerner , senior proletariat organizing director with New York Communities for Change . Lerner and Kearl also claim that , once call for , the information effectively becomes public , aside from the name calling of those injured . Consequently , those names are redacted in the written document below . Further 300 and 300a information gain from the company ’s other facilities — which they arelegally obligated to provideif it is quest — would give a more precise indicant of its workplace condom record as a whole .
Notably , JFK8 only open up in September of 2018 , so the information in these documents only covers a portion of the year , and the busiest one at that — the so - called “ peak time of year , ” beginning around Thanksgiving and ending around New Year ’s when worker account increased time of day , restriction on using holiday mean solar day , and compulsory overtime . Amazon might argue that this inconvenient timing is responsible for for JFK8 ’s unflattering injury rate . However , the intensity of the workload is reflected in the toll its injuries take .
As a terminus of art within OSHA , the harshness charge per unit is reckon simply : number of lose workdays divided by reportable incident . For JFK8 last year , craunch those figures final result in a badness rate of 64 , or over two month of missed work per reportable harm , on mediocre . Amazon has not resolve Gizmodo ’s enquiry about the Occupational Safety and Health Administration report , and without additional data , it ’s unimaginable to know if these rate are unusually high within the company ’s logistics internet .
The overpowering number of injuries detailed in the 300a are sprains and bruises , though storage warehouse worker claim worse has occurred in the facility . “ There was a lady I have intercourse . I shout when she told me she had a miscarriage . She was five month pregnant , ” a current JFK8 worker , who asked to remain anon. for fright of reprisal , told Gizmodo . “ The managers just refused to put her in a different section where she might have had less deflection , stretching and things to do . ” Though we were ineffective to get hold of the woman in interrogative sentence , this story was corroborated by a second , recently - terminated worker at the same Staten Island warehouse .
These numbers only secernate part of the tale , however . In order for an incident to rise to the level of being written up and reported to OSHA , it must meet specific criterion — expiry , loss of workdays , loss of consciousness , upset off-white , and other injury that can not be stabilize on - site . “ If someone cuts their bridge player with a boxcutter or something they ’re capable to receive first care [ for ] and then return to work , that ’s not a recorded injury , ” Kearl say .
“ They would narrate us to process extremely tight , so I ’d trip up over the run . I ’d have bruises on my leg , ” the former JFK8 worker said . She complained of falling box , and of dehydration . “ The fans — a lot of them do n’t work , which causes a lot of the great unwashed to get really dizzy . ” Workers from this quickness have spoken publically about temperature control problems in JFK8 since at leastlast December .
Kearl suspect the reporting criteria also result in repetitive move injuries — common among warehouse proletarian — being mostly take out from Occupational Safety and Health Administration reportage . “ Workers are getting hurt through the course of working long hours doing physical labor , and they are deal with those problems on their own , ” he said . Of the 107 reported incident , only four seem to belong to this category : two carpal tunnel syndrome caseful , an unspecified nerve injury , and tendonitis . All were enter as bear on the left over and correct bridge player , leave alone and right wrist , or both .
Behind these damaging numbers is the same pervasive demand to nail labor as chop-chop and efficiently as possible that worker have spoken up about for years , with minuscule melioration in their condition to show for it . “ You eat and immediately it ’s over . You have to get up and keep conk , ” the current JFK8 worker said . The limited break time followed by physically intensive lying-in have resulted in her vomiting at work . “ I think of telling my manager . He did n’t even ask if I was o.k. , he asked if the garbage pailful where I give up , if it was still there , because it was go to smell by and by . ”
It should come as no surprise then that today outside JFK8 , workers and activists are plan to protest at 5 pm ET . Like thegroundbreaking walk - outat a Minnesota fulfilment shopping center last twelvemonth , it ’s planned around a shift change . Their demand are modest : increasing breaks from 15 to 30 minutes , and securing more reliable transit from the Staten Island Ferry ( which connects the burough to the relaxation of New York City ) to their fairly outside workplace of Matrix Global Logistics Park . The same current employee , who lease a babysitter to take care today ’s rally and who risks retaliation from direction for appearing there articulate simply , “ I ’m hoping to get Amazon to at least come to the board . ”
Update , 11/25 1:44pm Eastern : An Amazon representative declined to respond to our specific question , and leave a general statement instead .
“ It ’s inaccurate to say that Amazon fulfilment centers are dangerous , ” the statement scan , “ and efforts to paint our work as such based solely on the number of injury recordings is misleading fall in the size of our men . ” OSHA ’s calculation for incident rates takes a facility ’s full hour work into report specifically to address the issue of comparing varying faculty sizes .
The statement proceed : “ We believe so strongly in the environs that we propose for fulfilment center of attention employees , including our safety acculturation , that we offer public term of enlistment where anyone can come for themselves one of our sites at first hand . Ensuring the safety of associates in our building is our number one priority and we adorn heavily in safety . operating meetings , Modern hire preference , physical process education and new appendage development begin with safety and have safety metrics and audited account integrated within each program . Safety education is constant , both in making indisputable employees sleep with how good to run with the technology in the readiness and also how to forestall injuries . ”
Although businesses in specific manufacture , like reposition , are legally obligated to record injuries and illnesses that rise to specific levels of severityas defined by OSHA , the spokesperson bring that , “ There ’s a dramatic tier of under - recording of safety incidents across the industry – we accredit this in 2016 and began to take an fast-growing posture on register accidental injury no matter how heavy or modest . ”
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