"Amazon Manipulated Injury Data, Ignored Safety Warnings, Senate Probe Finds"

... a congressional investigation into Amazon’s occupational hazards found that the e-tail Goliath knowingly sacrificed employee health in the name of speed and productivity and manipulated workplace injury data to make its warehouses appear safer than they are.

Among the findings, the result of an 18-month probe by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions ... was the revelation that the Everything Store’s warehouses has been obfuscating injury rates that are “significantly” higher than both the industry average and non-Amazon warehouses due to “uniquely dangerous” conditions that force workers to move at an “extremely fast and dangerous” clip, replete with harmful repetitive motions.

... Over the past seven years, workers at the nation’s largest online retailer were also nearly twice as likely to be injured compared with their counterparts at other warehouses because they regularly bypassed safety measures, such as the proper use of ladders or requesting help to lift a heavy item, to keep up with the company’s “unsustainable” quota requirements, it said.

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On Monday, Amazon pushed back at the investigation, rejecting findings that it said are “fundamentally flawed” because they are based on “outdated information that lacks context and isn’t grounded in reality.”

“We’re proud of the progress we’ve made and our commitment to continuously improving, and we were eager to share that progress with the committee,” it said in a statement. “Unfortunately, it’s now clear that this investigation wasn’t a fact-finding mission, but rather an attempt to collect information and twist it to support a false narrative.”

Amazon claimed that contrary to the Senate committee’s assertions, it’s managed to increase it delivery speeds while while decreasing injury rates across its global network, predominantly by moving products closer to customers and shortening the so-called “final mile.”

But Amazon workers, in wide-ranging interviews conducted by Sanders’s office, said that despite defined safety procedures, the company’s required rates make them “nearly impossible to follow.”...

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