The Unseen Plight of Amazon Warehouse Workers

The canopy of his OP prevented personal injury, but he said other associates might not be so lucky. Pellegrino once noticed an OP in the warehouse’s repair area with a collapsed canopy. A pallet was sitting on top.

​

Amazon employs a safety team that is supposed to surveil the building and ensure safety regulations are followed. But Pellegrino says they are nowhere to be found in the 300 aisles.

​

“I suspect this is because operational efficiency would be severely impaired,” he said. “Hence, Amazon just looks the other way.”

​

When safety conflicts with productivity, it appears that productivity wins out — and worker accounts show this does not just apply to the 300 aisles.

​

Another associate described similar practices at the Avenel sortation center, where he worked unloading boxes from trailers. There, workers also have to carry items marked “Team Lift” by themselves. But he said the biggest safety concern involves pallet building. Associates work so quickly stacking boxes to build pallets that they are not always built properly. The uneven pallets often topple over, sometimes onto associates.

​

The focus on productivity begins at the start of each shift when management announces the day’s goal. During prime week, workers were tasked with putting out 200,000 packages in five hours.

​

Most associates see no other alternative than working as fast as they can regardless of the safety risks. Many are low-income minorities and temporary workers terrified of losing their jobs.

​

Pellegrino, on the other hand, had nothing to lose — and so he decided to act. He penned a memorandum to management detailing his observations, along with recommendations to reduce the safety risks. And then he waited. As the weeks went on, he repeatedly reminded the managers about his note. It received no response. Undeterred, Pellegrino contacted OSHA, Senator Cory Booker’s office and the media.

​

“Amazon’s corporate demeanor is characterized by arrogance, ignorance and the acceptance of enormous liability exposure due to the potential for serious injury to employees up to and including death,” he said.

 

The Consequences

 

Even if workers don’t face the worst possible outcome of working at Amazon — losing their lives — many endure the consequences of the company’s workplace conditions.

​

“Back pain, feet hurting, headaches, dehydration, cut hands, cut fingers, and ankles twisting were very common,” Winckelman said. “Everyone was more focused on hitting rate than making sure that they were not hurting themselves.”

​

Another former Robbinsville employee said at least six of the ten coworkers he trained with had to visit a doctor during their time at Amazon for knee and back pains.

​

“You are a machine, doing the same repetitive motion for 13 hours straight,” he said. “That’s taxing.”

​

He said risk hinges on demand — namely whether or not the company is in the midst of peak season.

​

“During peak, two people left in stretchers if that puts things in perspective.”

​

In December 2015, OSHA fined the Robbinsville facility $7,000 for failing to report at least 26 work-related injuries. The Rutgers I-team asked Dixon-Roderick, the director of OSHA’s Marlton office, how OSHA discovers unreported injuries.

​

“Almost entirely through employee interviews,” she said.

​

This means the 26 unreported injuries named by OSHA are likely just the tip of the iceberg, with dozens or perhaps hundreds of injuries going entirely unnoticed.

​

When a serious accident does occur, warehouse workers are instructed not to call 9-11, according to a document obtained by The Huffington Post. Instead, they are told to contact Amazon’s security, which enables Amazon’s internal medical team, AMCARE, to handle the situation.

​

Employees told The Seattle Times that Amazon takes specific measures to avoid reporting injuries to OSHA, such as attributing wounds to pre-existing conditions or treating injuries in ways that do not trigger federal reports.

​

It appears, however, that AMCARE personnel cross their legal treatment boundaries. According to a letter sent to Jeff Bezos in 2015, Robbinsville AMCARE workers were not merely providing first aid.

​

“AMCARE personnel were providing medical care beyond what is allowed by their licensing and certification without the supervision of a board certified qualified medical professional licensed to practice independently,” OSHA’s Marleton area director Paula Dixon-Roderick wrote.

​

One fulfillment associate recalled a six-month pregnant worker falling on a pallet. She was sent to AMCARE, who returned her to work five minutes later. According to the co-worker, the woman went into preterm labor and has not been seen since.

​

Pellegrino is not just an outspoken advocate against Amazon’s safety environment — he was also injured on the job while counting products at the Cranbury fulfillment center. On Jan. 31, he tore the tendon in his left arm while lifting a heavy package in the 300 aisles.

​

He said he was barred from going to a private physician because New Jersey law dictates that Amazon’s outside insurance company, Sedgwick, has to set up care. Sedgwick took ten days to reply, only to notify him that his claim had been denied.

​

The company never scheduled a medical examination and never provided a reason why his claim was rejected. It was only after they had denied his request that he was able to go to a personal physician, but he had to pay for the expenses on his own.

​

Again, Pellegrino was lucky. He could afford to pay for his doctor’s visits and physical therapy appointments. Even if his injury prevented him from going back to work, he would still be on solid financial footing. However, most workers are not so fortunate.

​

According to a 2015 OSHA report, the costs of workplace injuries primarily fall on injured workers, their families and taxpayers. When employers like Amazon refuse to take full responsibility for on-the-job injuries, it can have detrimental financial consequences for working-class families.

​

“The failure of many employers to prevent millions of work injuries and illnesses each year, and the failure of the broken workers’ compensation system to ensure that workers do not bear the costs of their injuries and illnesses, are truly adding inequality to injury,” the report states.

​

One Robbinsville worker who injured her knee on site just got evicted from her home after Amazon stopped sending disability payments when her doctor cleared her for “light duty.” The problem? There is no light duty at Amazon. The single mother, who is recovering from a full knee replacement after an initial botched surgery, has no choice but to return to her grueling 12-hour night shifts as a packer.

​

“My only option is to go back to work,” she said. “I have to make money.”

​

Workers who attempt to push back against denied workers’ compensation claims or injury-related terminations are rarely successful in court. In a recent case, entitled Henson v. Amazon fulfillment, an New Jersey employee sued the company for firing her after she was injured on the job.

​

According to the claim, the plaintiff began experiencing numbness and tingling in both of her hands seven months after she was hired, which became exacerbated throughout the workday. She was diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome and asked her managers to provide “minor accommodations.”

​

Amazon declined the request, and a company representative called her a few days later to inform her that they did not believe the carpal tunnel was a “work-related injury.” During the phone call, she said she was also accused of “not working hard enough.”

​

Henson was terminated the next day. Her case against Amazon settled out of court.

​

“Amazon probably has one of the highest workers compensation rates in the country,” Pellegrino said. “They should be ashamed of themselves.”

 

Amazon’s Army of Temporary Workers

 

Amazon hires hundreds of thousands of temporary workers each peak season to meet the demands of holiday shopping. According to an Institute for Local Self-Reliance report, the company calls these workers “seasonal” to imply that they only work during the holidays. In fact, Amazon relies on temporary workers year round, outsourcing much of its staffing needs to firms such as Integrity Staffing Solutions.

​

Though they perform the same tasks as full-time workers, temps do not receive the same benefits as their full-time counterparts. On average, they make at least one dollar less per hour and are not provided with the same color uniforms as full-time workers.

​

A study by ProPublica that accounted for millions of workers compensation claims, found temporary workers face a “significantly greater risk” of being hurt on the job than full time workers due to a lack of training and oversight. The data analysis found that, depending on the state, temporary workers are anywhere from 50 to 72 percent more likely to sustain injuries on the job.

​

The workers compensation forms showed that the most common injuries among temporary workers are caused by being either “caught in” or “struck by” machinery — the same situations that led to the deaths of Devan Shoemaker, Ronald Smith and Philip Terry in Amazon warehouses.

​

Over the past decade, many temporary workers have brought complaints of mistreatment, safety violations and discrimination in Amazon warehouses to court. But it is rare for Amazon to be named as a defendant since the corporation is able to shield itself behind its third-party staffing agencies.

​

For example, when a group of temporary workers brought wage theft complaints to the Supreme Court in 2014, the high-profile case did not have Amazon’s name anywhere near its title. Its outcome would affect Amazon indirectly, but there was never a chance of the company itself incurring direct penalties or damages.

​

In cases where warehouse workers have died on the job, temporary staffing agencies have provided similar insulation against both fines and bad press.

​

Jeff Lockhart Jr., who died in a Virginia fulfillment center five years ago, was a temporary worker employed by Integrity Staffing Solutions, Amazon’s largest temporary staffing agency. According to a confidential internal document, he was working as a picker at the time of his death.

​

The document describes Lockhart as a “consistently hard worker” whose history showed no abnormalities or outliers. The cause of his death, while still not fully confirmed, appeared to be a pulmonary embolism — a type of artery blockage that typically begins as a blood clot. But despite the intense symptoms associated with this condition, Lockhart continued to work up until the minute he collapsed.

​

“Amazon Associate (name redacted) discovered Lockhart at approximately 2:30 p.m., which is within one minute of his last recorded pick,” the internal report reads. “EMS transported Lockhart via ambulance to John Randolph Hospital and at approximately 4:00 p.m. Mr. Lockhart was pronounced deceased.”

​

The same year, the brutal death of Ronald Smith prompted an investigation by OSHA, in which $6,000 fines were doled out to four temporary staffing agencies and one third party logistics provider. Once again, Amazon itself did not receive a single penalty from the Department of Labor and, according to court documents, the family’s lawsuit eventually led to a settlement.

​

In an official statement, Patricia Jones, the director of OSHA’s Avenel Office, noted that temporary staffing agencies and host employers should be seen as “jointly responsible for the health and safety of temporary employees.”

​

But with the way the system currently work out, agencies like Integrity Staffing Solutions and Abacus take the majority of the heat and insurance premiums, while Amazon takes the majority of the profit. Meanwhile, temporary workers sit at the very bottom of the supply chain, absorbing the brunt of the problems that exist above them.

​

On a day-to-day basis, Amazon’s temporary workforce is also held to more stringent rules than full time workers, which brings added stress and job insecurity. When it comes to attendance, Integrity Staffing Solutions uses a strict point-based system that calls for the immediate termination of any worker who misses two days of work without calling in. 

​

When a temporary worker does call out of work, they still incur 1.5 points and, if they come in late or leave early, they earn half a point. It only takes six points for the employee's position at the company to “fall into jeopardy.”

​

In some warehouses, temporary workers aren’t even given the courtesy of being notified of their own termination. A former employee said the company simply deactivated his key card so he could no longer enter the building.

​

There are various organizations around New Jersey that work to improve working conditions in warehouses. In New Brunswick, the most active is New Labor, which focuses on promoting safety and teaching low-wage immigrant workers to advocate for themselves.

​

New Labor’s slogan is “organization through education,” according to Lou Kimmel, the executive director and co-founder. 

​

Kimmel said some of the disparities between full-time and seasonal workers can seem minor — full time workers are invited to Christmas parties, offered free pizza, given uniforms that are blue instead of white — but they invite a culture of hierarchy wherein temporary workers are ultimately made to feel subordinate.

​

He said the strict attendance policy enforced by agencies like Integrity Staffing Solutions contributes heavily to this culture by enforcing the idea that temporary workers are expendable.

​

“If there’s pressure and you need to make money, you can’t take time off,” Kimmel said. “And you're going to risk yourself working more dangerously or working faster if they build incentives around production.”

​

On April 22, workers and activists joined together at the Workers’ Memorial Day March and Rally in downtown New Brunswick to remember people who have died on the job and to fight for those still working in dangerous conditions.

​

“Not one more death!” they passionately chanted in both English and Spanish. “¡Ni una muerte más!

​

Every day in this country, 12 people go to work and don’t come home, Kimmel said during an interview in New Labor’s office. And each year, millions more are injured.

​

“It’s not just one person or one name. This has ripple effects in the community because the workers contribute to the economy, they have families that go to school and there is psychological trauma for the kids when they can’t see their mom or dad anymore,” he said.

​

Kimmel pointed above his desk at the phrase, “Pray for the dead, fight like hell for the living.” The quote was first spoken by Mother Jones, a labor activist born in the mid-1800s.

​

Under the text, a laminated poster depicts a temp agency employer and a warehouse employer pointing a finger at one another while a worker lies on the ground under a 500-pound box.

​

“Going back to the case with Ronald Smith, we have to remember that his death was not in vain and there is no price you can put on a life,” Kimmel said. “You go to work to making a living — not to risk your life. We need responsibility in the supply chain.”

 

Looking to the Future

 

Despite its expanding collection of workplace fatalities, lawsuits and federal fines, Amazon shows no sign of slowing down. The tech giant is fueled by a customer-centric approach — and the customer always wants more.

​

“People have a voracious appetite for a better way, and yesterday’s ‘wow’ quickly becomes today’s ‘ordinary’,” Bezos wrote in his latest shareholder letter. “I see that cycle of improvement happening at a faster rate than ever before.”

​

To satisfy the customer’s every-growing desire for more, Amazon continues to find ways to boost productivity.

​

In January of this year, Amazon won a pair of patents for a wearable technology that can track inventory and productivity levels, as well as the movements of its warehouse employees.

​

​