Amazon and OSHA reach broad settlement over injury rates and warehouse working conditions
Amazon and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced an agreement to settle most of the cases brought by OSHA over allegations of hazardous working conditions in the e-commerce giant’s warehouses.
The settlement, announced Thursday, implements a dispute resolution process for ergonomics complaints from Amazon workers; sets twice-yearly meetings to review injury data; and requires the company to pay a penalty of $145,000 — which the agency said represents more than 90% of the fines levied by OSHA in its citations.
Amazon called the settlement a recognition of its progress on safety issues — noting that OSHA vacated nine of its 10 primary ergonomic citations against the company, and concluded its investigation as part of the settlement.
The settlement “requires Amazon to take action at the corporate level to ensure ergonomics requirements are effectively implemented at each Amazon facility covered by the agreement,” said Seema Nanda, the U.S. solicitor of labor, in a statement, noting that the Department of Labor has the ability to enforce the agreement in court if needed.
“The ball is in the company’s court,” said Douglas L. Parker, assistant OSHA secretary, in a statement. “OSHA stands ready to work with their ergonomics team to evaluate their progress and verify the commitments they made to OSHA.”
Amazon described this provision as a continuation of its existing practices, saying in part that it “will continue leveraging our corporate team of certified ergonomists to ensure compliance across all sites in the network.”
The company cited factors including a 28% improvement in its recordable incident rate since 2019, a 27% improvement in ergonomic injury rates, and a 75% improvement in lost-time injury rates.
“Today’s agreement acknowledges our progress and notes that we should keep implementing and following our existing comprehensive ergonomics policies and procedures,” the company said. “There isn’t a claim of wrong-doing on Amazon’s part for the withdrawn citations, nor a directive to adopt new safety controls.”
Amazon added, “We appreciate OSHA’s willingness to consider all the facts and reach today’s agreement with us, and we look forward to continuing to work with them going forward.”
The settlement follows the release Sunday of a 160-page report from the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), led by Sen. Bernie Sanders, which alleged that Amazon manipulated injury data, disregarded internal safety research, and discouraged injured employees from seeking external medical care.
An Amazon spokesperson previously called that report “wrong on the facts,” saying it “weaves together out-of-date documents and unverifiable anecdotes to create a pre-conceived narrative” from Sanders and his allies.
The Strategic Organizing Center, a coalition of labor unions, criticized Amazon’s statements about the OSHA settlement in a statement on Thursday afternoon.
“Amazon’s claim that this settlement somehow vindicates its years of misleading the public about the safety of its warehouses is absolutely false,” said Michael Zucker, its executive director. “As our analysis has found for years, Amazon has utterly failed to use its vast resources and reams of internal data to prevent worker injuries.”
Read the full statements from Amazon and the U.S. Department of Labor.