Fighting for Safe Work: Injury Data Show Urgent Need for Intervention in NY State’s Warehouses – National Employment Law Project

An analysis of the latest available data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration shows persistently high rates of warehouse worker injury and these key findings:

As warehouse jobs grow, workers in that industry—who are disproportionately Black and Latinx—experience injuries more than workers in any other industry in New York State.  Warehousing jobs have more than doubled since 2010 in New York State (NYS), and grew 14 percent in 2022, compared to 4 percent job growth in the rest of the private sector. Alarmingly, New Yorkers working in the warehouse industry—who are disproportionately Black and Latinx—were injured at a higher rate than people working in any other industry in New York State in 2021, the latest year for which data are available.[1] The vast majority of injuries in NYS warehouses—88 percent—were cases severe enough that workers could not continue performing their normal job duties and had to either change job duties or take time off work to recover. Warehouse workers suffered such injuries at a rate of 6.5 cases per 100 workers, which is quadruple the rate of the NYS private sector average of 1.4 cases per 100 workers (Figure 1).
Amazon workers are injured at even higher rates than their industry peers in New York State. Amazon is a major employer in the warehousing and logistics sector in New York State, representing about a quarter of NYS warehousing and logistics employment.[2] According to the most recent data that Amazon self-reported to OSHA, Amazon warehousing and facilities workers in NYS are injured at a rate of 8.2 per 100 workers, a rate the equivalent of one injury for every 12 full-time equivalent employees (FTEs), compared to a rate of 6.9 for workers in non-Amazon warehousing and logistics facilities (Figure 2). Moreover, Amazon’s self-reported data may not even reflect the true extent of the injury crisis at the company. An OSHA investigation at ALB1, an Amazon fulfillment center in Schodack, NY, recently revealed that Amazon failed to record various job-related injuries requiring medical attention over a 6-week period in June 2022, which if annualized would have increased the total injury rate by about 50 percent at the facility.[3] Amazon’s injury rate has remained persistently high, declining only slightly in 2022 from a rate of 9 cases per 100 FTEs in 2021, despite an active investigation by OSHA at two of its NYS facilities during that period.[4]
Almost all the injuries to New York State Amazon workers were of the most serious kind. Ninety-five percent of injuries that NYS Amazon workers experienced in 2022 were cases severe enough that workers could not continue performing their normal job duties and had to either change job duties or take time off work to recover.[5] (See Figure 2.)
New York State Amazon workers experience the most serious injuries at a 37 percent higher rate than non-Amazon warehousing and logistics workers statewide. Amazon workers experienced the most serious injuries at a rate of 7.8 cases per 100 FTEs, compared to a rate of 5.6 for their counterparts in similar jobs at other companies. Injury rates at Walmart and UPS, the two other of the largest warehousing and logistics employers in NYS, also surpass the NYS average injury rate for all private sector workers (1.4). However, Amazon workers were the most likely to experience injuries of the most serious type, meaning those requiring missed work or job transfer. Amazon workers in NYS were 40 percent more likely than their counterparts at UPS and 68 percent more likely than their counterparts at Walmart to suffer these most serious types of injuries.[6] (See Figure 3.)
— Read on www.nelp.org/publication/fighting-for-safe-work-injury-data-show-urgent-need-for-intervention-in-ny-states-warehouses/