
'Shockingly High' Number of Injuries at Amazon's Staten Island Warehouse - bryanrasmussen
https://gothamist.com/news/new-report-shows-shockingly-high-number-injuries-amazons-staten-island-warehouse?mc_cid=e5fbebb334&mc_eid=54f18bcf45
======
cronix
It might be high there, but Troutdale, OR is #1. What a horrible company to
work for. "The most dangerous facility, according to the piece, is Amazon's
warehouse in Troutdale, Ore., which had a serious injury rate of 26 per 100
workers, more than six times the industry average."

[https://www.wweek.com/news/business/2019/11/27/amazon-
wareho...](https://www.wweek.com/news/business/2019/11/27/amazon-warehouse-in-
troutdale-under-scrutiny/)

~~~
jandrese
> a serious injury rate of 26 per 100 workers

What? A worse than 1/4 chance you will be maimed? That seems absurdly high.
Deep sea crab fishing off the Alaska coast is a safer profession!

~~~
corodra
The last time an article on HN about Amazon's warehouses being dangerous came
out, a number of folks tried to argue that it's no big deal because they
weren't dying. Thus, it's a safe place to work. High accident rates are
perfectly fine as long as they dont die...

~~~
badrequest
What a boring dystopia we've come to inhabit.

~~~
corodra
What's sad, all fictional portrayals of dystopias are struggles and fights.
Like, "the good guys died in battle from being killed by the bad guys".

Now, if you speak up against FAANG or some other company making bullshit
promises to "save the world", it's the people that stomp out the "good guys".

Don't get me wrong, it's clever on them. But it's sad and makes the coming
decades unnerving if these companies aren't lassoed into control. Apple is
especially guilty of the whole cult following thing where they can do no wrong
in the eyes of their zealots. Their continued growth and profiting is a symbol
not of parasitic nature, but of their divinity to these people.

Goddamn it, and I'm a red blooded capitalist. How do we resurrect Teddy
Roosevelt, the old Bull Moose himself? We need Teddy...

------
Spooky23
It's amazing to think that a decade ago, Amazon was touting injury rates
around 3-4 in fulfillment centers -- lower than grocery stores. Their Delaware
center was recognized as one of the safest in the country by OSHA.

I worry about Amazon workers in more business friendly places. If they are
doing this in a regulation heavy city/state like NY, other places must be
horrific.

~~~
Pfhreak
> Amazon was touting injury rates around 3-4 in fulfillment centers

Amazon's response sort of touches on this, saying they've pushed for recording
every incident, big or small. 3-4 could be from underreporting or from better
working conditions (or both).

~~~
jellicle
But Amazon's response is bullshit. The data is from government stats, and the
reporting threshold is the same as it ever was (basically, if an employee is
admitted to the hospital):

[https://www.osha.gov/report.html](https://www.osha.gov/report.html)

Amazon's PR people are pretending the high numbers are because they are
reporting papercuts, but papercuts would be rejected for the government stats.
This is "severe injury or death" reporting only.

"According to the report, workers whose injuries were logged by Amazon were
each forced to miss an average of 64.04 days of employment."

Does that sound like papercuts? An average of three months off work, if they
even return?

~~~
grandmczeb
> The data is from government stats, and the reporting threshold is the same
> as it ever was (basically, if an employee is admitted to the hospital)

This is wrong. It's from an analysis of Amazon's own incident logs that OSHA
requires companies to keep (OSHA form 300A[1].) The government doesn't
"reject" incidents from these logs. Additionally, a recordable injury is any
of the following[2]

    
    
      - Any work-related fatality.
      - Any work-related injury or illness that results in loss of consciousness, days away from work, restricted work, or transfer to another job.
      - Any work-related injury or illness requiring medical treatment beyond first aid.
      - Any work-related diagnosed case of cancer, chronic irreversible diseases, fractured or cracked bones or teeth, and punctured eardrums.
      - There are also special recording criteria for work-related cases involving: needlesticks and sharps injuries; medical removal; hearing loss; and tuberculosis.
    

That's very different than "severe injury or death" only.

[1] [https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/new-
osha300form1-1-04-For...](https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/new-
osha300form1-1-04-FormsOnly.pdf)

[2] [https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/](https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/)

------
MengerSponge
As we've seen in Indiana, Amazon is powerful enough that state legislators
will bend some rules for their favor:
[https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2019/11/2...](https://www.indystar.com/story/news/investigations/2019/11/25/amazon-
indiana-governor-eric-holcomb-warehouse-accident-hq-2/4282653002/)

------
dfc-agency
There are unseen externalities for getting a tube of toothpaste for $5.99
shipped to your door in 24 hours.

Unfortunately, those externalities are our countrymen and women.

~~~
literallycancer
I can order hardware from a local store at 7 PM and have it delivered by 9 PM
the same day here in Europe. They also have better prices than Amazon and no
work safety problems. You can do things well or you can do them badly. There's
no rule saying that good customer experience has to take a toll on your
employees.

~~~
mdorazio
Yes, because the store is local rather than being a warehouse some distance
away and the store has a limited variety of things available. I don't really
see how this comparison is useful.

~~~
megous
They'll probably have toothpaste though.

------
notTyler
They're running employee testimonial ads about how great it is to work at
their warehouses on national broadcasts pretty regularly now. That's all I
needed to know that it's going downhill faster rather than slower.

~~~
pjscott
That just means that they have a PR problem. It doesn't necessarily indicate a
problem with their actual warehouse conditions, though there may be one; it's
enough that people _believe_ there's a problem.

~~~
chopin
But these adverts raise even more suspicion. I had a very awkward feeling when
I saw them the first time in the German TV. Everybody knows that adverts are
the poster-child of lying. Why should this be different? And if those are real
workers being interviewed (I doubt that) who in his right would voluntarily
step in front of a camera and say "this is a great and safe place to work". If
they are for real, I'd think they are coerced. If they are not for real,
what's the point?

------
williamDafoe
Good thing everyboy took Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the woodshed over Amazon
settling in NYC. We need more of these worker-maiming lower class jobs to keep
the lower classes in their place!

~~~
all_blue_chucks
That was regarding office jobs, not warehouse jobs.

------
FernandoTN
> "Ensuring the safety of associates in our building is our number one
> priority and we invest heavily in safety,"

Having pain medications on vending machines for their employees seems to me
like scheduling to fix a leak after it rains.

------
jammygit
> Gizmodo first reported, the warehouse scored a 15.2 on its OSHA Incident
> Rate, which compares the number of serious injuries to the number of total
> hours worked among all employees at a given worksite. That figure is five
> times greater than the national average for all workers, and substantially
> more than rates found in other dangerous workplaces, such as coal mines and
> sawmills. The average OSHA Rate for general warehouse workers is 5.2, or
> roughly a third of the injury frequency at the Staten Island fulfillment
> center.

I keep forgetting why I cancelled my amazon account but then I’m reminded

~~~
throw1234651234
heh, this is pretty cyberpunk though

~~~
rtkwe
That's not a good thing! People have gotten mesmerized by the cool aesthetic
and miss/forget the whole corporate hellscape aspect of cyberpunk.

~~~
throw1234651234
"corporate hellscape aspect" \- that's exactly what I mean.

~~~
rtkwe
Ah ok, I read your comment with much more enthusiasm for it being a cyberpunk
hellscape.

------
BucketSort
We were warned not to feed man to the machine, yet that's exactly what we did.
I guess everyone that died fighting for this country did so to create a bunch
of billionaires and slaves to serve them. Our nation was paid for by the blood
of its people, but somehow this debt is always forgotten. The people, by the
right of sacrifice, deserve better than this.

~~~
kortilla
By the right of sacrifice? Is this a veterans-only warehouse or something?

The US created a bunch of billionaires, but it also created the richest middle
class. Let’s cut back the drama a bit and maybe discuss a law to improve
safety?

~~~
BucketSort
Drama? What about the epidemic suicides and drug overdoses happening in this
country? What about the absolute destruction of rural communities by
monopolies emboldened by the lack of antitrust enforcement? The people of this
country are being abused in so many ways and nothing is being done for them.
Laws aren't going to help this situation, it's our stinking attitude that's
the problem. It's our complete disregard for human life that's the problem.

~~~
HashHishBang
I may be off base here but this sounds an awful lot like perfect being the
enemy of the good. Or, framed another way, idealism being the enemy of the
pragmatic.

Waxing poetic about everyday tragedy is all well and good as a rhetorical
device. However, it doesn't really do anything except to sow the seeds of
division now does it? Especially when you cap the whole bit with the idea that
it is thought that is wrong and not action.

And your proposed solution to this is effectively a paradigm shift in the
perception of human value?

~~~
BucketSort
I'm sure you're the type of person that thinks poems are written to solve some
sort of problem. Not all human communication is about expressing some solution
to a problem. We can communicate sentiment and points of view as well.

------
sequoia
Any bets on when people who are "shocked, shocked" about Amazon's treatment of
its workers are going to put their money where their mouth is and actually
forgo the convenience of next day delivery & rock bottom prices?

Americans have it tough in so many ways (health care system, lack of public
transit, kleptocratic federal government), it's sad to see us making it even
worse for our fellow small-guys like this to buy ourselves some convenience
and save a few dollars on consumer goods. (Notwithstanding the many people for
whom home delivery etc. is a godsend without which they'd have a much more
difficult life. It's complicated.)

We vote with our dollars and currently we are telling Amazon "this is OK, keep
doing it" loud and clear.

~~~
GaryNumanVevo
This is a really bad take, voting with your dollar works when there’s actually
competition. Amazon has an effective monopoly, and we need people to vote with
their vote for regulation to protect works.

~~~
refurb
Monopoly? Everything you can buy at Amazon you could buy before Amazon ever
existed. And guess what? You still can.

Not even remotely a monopoly.

~~~
csb6
This is not what the parent is talking about. Amazon has a virtual monopoly
over online buying and selling, with even other sellers having to sell their
products on Amazon to reach customers.

What does Amazon do with these third-party sellers? It uses the sales data
that Amazon collected for them to create cheaper products with Amazon
branding, which are then suggested ahead of the third-party products. This is
blatant anti-competitive behavior; effectively no one can compete with
Amazon’s online marketplace - not even the people _in_ that marketplace.

~~~
tracer4201
What’s your source on Amazon using sales data to stifle competitors? I’ve read
this claim a lot but haven’t seen any clear evidence.

What prevents these folks who fund all the unicorns from starting their own
Amazon competitor? You made a pretty bold claim that nobody can compete with
Amazon, but it’s not even clear how anyone is forced to use Amazon or sell on
its website.

Literally nothing prevents you from standing up your own website and selling
items. Consumers in most of the US can decide for or against shopping on
Amazon, although many rural places have no options at all other than WalMart
or Dollar General in terms of physical stores.

There’s literally nothing Amazon offers that you can’t get from a competitor,
and often times at a better price in my experience.

~~~
csb6
This is missing the point. Amazon is acting anti-competitively towards the
sellers currently using its platform. That is the problem, not that businesses
could potentially set up their own sites. The conflict of interest is the
problem; Amazon undercuts its own competitors using their data.

Maybe it is a better decision for a given business to not sell in Amazon. But
that doesn’t make Amazon’s behavior any less anti-competitive. Many small-time
sellers have no way to reach a large market without using Amazon to reach
customers. Most people don’t go to smalltimeseller.com to buy stuff; for a
large portion of consumers, online shopping is synonymous with Amazon.

Here’s source about the undercutting claim
[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304441404577482...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304441404577482902055882264)

