Amazon.com Inc. failed to record injuries and illnesses at warehouses around the US, according to federal workplace safety regulators, a finding that undermines the company’s pledges to improve worker safety in its facilities.
(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc. failed to record injuries and illnesses at warehouses around the US, according to federal workplace safety regulators, a finding that undermines the company’s pledges to improve worker safety in its facilities.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the Seattle-based e-commerce giant for 14 record-keeping violations during an ongoing probe of six facilities in Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois and New York. The unrecorded incidents included injuries to wrists, knees, backs and shoulders that resulted in employees missing work, OSHA said.
“Solving health and safety problems in the workplace requires injury and illness records to be accurate and transparent,” OSHA chief Doug Parker said in a release. “Our concern is that nothing will be done to keep an injury from recurring if it isn’t even recorded in the logbook which—in a company the size of Amazon—could have significant consequences for a large number of workers.”
Amazon faces fines of $29,008 for the violations.
“The safety of our employees is our top priority, and we invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year into ensuring we have a robust safety program to protect them,” Kelly Nantel, a company spokesperson, said in an email. “Accurate record-keeping is a critical element of that program and while we acknowledge there may have been small administrative errors over the years, we’ve been confident in the numbers we’ve reported to the government. We’re pleased that OSHA reached the same conclusion today.”
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