back to article What price your home delivery? Amazon accused of hiding real injury rate in its overworked warehouses

Amazon has apparently been misleading the public over the number of injuries that happen in its warehouses, with the e-commerce giant actually suffering nearly double the typical injury rate, according to leaked documents. Despite years of complaints over how the company’s constant efforts to speed up the turnaround of …

  1. IGotOut Silver badge

    If anyone says "look we were better during this period"

    they are most likely trying to distract from all other periods.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I used to work in a Industrial Engineer department doing their computing, they are the guys that did all the time and motion studies and came up with a safe "scientific" method for performing some function in a production line. The scientic and safe method would be taught and then the operatives would be given a rate for using it. The operatives would always find ways to do it faster so as to get a higher pay rate and after a time this would become the standard method. That the new method typically saved time by omitting actions that caused RSI or risked falling or other dangerous actions was their fault as this was the operatives "chosen" method in full knowledge of the implications.

    Same as using a machine without safety guard, if you did it after being warned then any resulting injury was your own fault. That many companies gave employees the choice of using the machine unsafely or not having a job is the reason that many people I knew from the '80s lost limbs without compensation.

    1. Phil O'Sophical Silver badge

      I'm not sure where you're based, but in places like the UK if a supervisor saw someone using an unsafe practice that was against the rules, and didn't call them on it, the supervisor would be in breach of health & safety rules.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Yes, but you live in a socialist and paternalistic country like UK, not in the Land of the Free where people must be free to hurt themselves to allow their overlords profits rise, rise, rise!

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I posted that I worked in IED and I am also based in the UK so whilst you talk of health and safety being the defender of the worker, my experience of the reality is that workers have indeed been pressured into doing this and lost limbs without having any recourse because workers legal protections have been contineously since 1980. to other replies Unions are great but again Unions have also been targetted for power reduction during the same period. Everyone used to be in a workers union now the vast majority cannot join oone

    2. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge
      FAIL

      I work at the sharp end of industrial production involving 1000's of widgets spread over several machining cells.

      We hire operators to do machine loading/moving pallets around/general factory duties (some are excellent.. some are average, some lets say are'nt as good)

      All operators are told on their first day not to do unsafe stuff, not to bypass safety cutouts etc etc etc even if they could work faster without the guarding being in place (it takes time to open/close guards per cycle).

      This is basic health and safety stuff and if its not enforced in the event of an accident the company can have its arse sued off(the insurance companies tend to go 'f you' in such cases)

      even supervisors like me have our own padlocks to lock the cell down when we're fixing and setting stuff(I'm purple... for some reason)

      If our managers told us to do stuff that outside of the above rules, we'd demand it in writing because of the the aforementioned dangers and liabilites because usually any case would go like this

      Coroner :why was boris inside the the cell when it began moving?

      Manager: Dunno , he went in to fix something and failed to follow the rules

      Gets a bit harder to defend that when the union rep follows up with

      "Heres a written order for him to go into the cell without powering down everything written by you, and in spite of Boris warning you it was an unsafe practise"

    3. ShadowDragon8685

      > That many companies gave employees the choice of using the machine unsafely or not having a job

      This here is the reason why so many "options" need to be taken away from employers/employees. "You have the option to work without breaks/safety measures" becomes "you have the option to choose unemployment over working without breaks/safety", in every single case, because they WILL be able to find someone just a bit more desperate than you to take your position if you don't.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @"WILL be able to find someone just a bit more desperate than you to take your position if you don't." of course this is the case since they have intentionally been making workers increasingly desperate since the '80s.

        It isn't accidental it is Tory policy that the workers should shut up and do what they are told.

        The worst thing is that the majority in the UK kept voting for more of the same.

  3. Neil Barnes Silver badge

    This article is obviously based on US practices

    Is there a similar study for e.g. UK centres? I suspect that the UK H&S at Work act has a few more teeth in it than seems to apply in some cases in the US.

    Or was this the result of a world-wide survey? And if so, where were the trouble hot spots?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: This article is obviously based on US practices

      I would suggest that H&S in moral companies is very different to those companies that see the workers as being ungrateful illerate pigs that by right they should be allowed to whip rather than pay.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Stop buying your stuff from them

    Workers are expendible in Bezos's mind. They'll soon be extinct anyway as his fully automated warehouses spread across the world. Even more people out of work and unable to afford the [redacted][redacted] shit that they often sell.

    Buy local while you can people. Keep real people in jobs.

    Avoid Amazon and any of their companies even if it is just to slow down their grand plan to be the last retailer left standing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stop buying your stuff from them

      Do you feel the same way about farming? Where do we turn the spigot of "automation is killing these jobs"?

      Eliminating jobs that can be done by machines frees up humanity to do other, better things. Its good that 10% of the workforce can produce more food and resources now than we could 200 years ago using 70% of the workforce, no?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stop buying your stuff from them

      Actually, the technology to automated warehouses is already here, and many companies have warehouses far more automated than Bezos' ones. They would have a far higher upfront cost to build, and they won't be able to save in maintenance or sooner or later the plant would stop functioning or cause damages that can be expensive. Moreover Amazon can't control the packaging of incoming goods, nor it can sell whole wholesale boxes.

      Wetware in this case is cheaper, more expendable, and adapts better at different packages sizes and formats. Only when robots will be well cheaper Amazon will replace them.

    3. Gene Cash Silver badge

      Re: Stop buying your stuff from them

      I'd love to buy local.

      Unfortunately "local" doesn't stock anything. Not even the basic stuff.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stop buying your stuff from them

        It is true too many shops - even the larger ones - kept on the mentality "you can buy only the stuff I have here already, or you can go away" instead of trying to satisfy the customers' needs. It worked before, but now customers can also look elsewhere easily. It's even nastier when the shop is some kind of "verified reseller" of some brands. And I'm not the kind who wants things "now!!!". For many items I can wait days or even weeks, if they hard to find.

        When my father died and we closed his hardware shop (the old type of "hardware"), many customers were "lost" because it was one of the few shops ready to fulfill "special orders" for items not usually on shelves.

    4. DS999 Silver badge

      Re: Stop buying your stuff from them

      Who is going to shed a tear if moving boxes around in a warehouse becomes automated? Buying local won't prevent that from happening, and the time to do that to save those jobs was 30 years ago when the Walmarts and Best Buys and so forth first began to squeeze out the local retailers and specialty electronics/music stores.

      People used to have to go out in cornfields and pick each ear of corn by hand. That job was replaced by machines that not only pick the ears but strip them of all the kernels while they're at it, so they do a better job than the people did. Did anyone shed a tear for the corn pickers? Should they have?

      While I agree with those who saying automation has replaced jobs for ages, we're about to have a lot more jobs replaced in the next two decades than has ever happened before. Taxi/Uber drivers, truck drivers, every job in a fast food restaurant (and a lot of kitchen jobs in everything but really high end places) and all stocking related jobs in the warehouse and in the sales aisles will be gone. Some of these transitions are already well underway, like customer service phone reps being automated (those IVR systems still suck and everyone hates them, but they will get better eventually)

      At some point, the unskilled labor pool will be a lot larger than the available jobs for them. You can't train a warehouse worker or fast food fry cook to be a computer programmer, and expect that solves the problem.

    5. ShadowDragon8685

      Re: Stop buying your stuff from them

      > Keep real people in jobs.

      The fundamental idea that people "need" jobs is the flawed premise here. If we can automate shit and put 250m people "out of work," then we have the automation to provide for those now-jobless 250m people. If even five percent of them go on to find something else productive to do, you've gained 12.5m productive jobs at the cost of 250m unproductive ones which were effectively "busy-work."

  5. Claverhouse Silver badge
    Pirate

    *Sobs Openly*

    “...Nothing is more important than the health and well-being of our employees.”

    .

    “Nothing !"

    1. Chris G

      Re: *Sobs Openly*

      That line stood out to me too.

      The health of his workers concerns him because it affects productivity, unhealthy workers seem to be manoeuvred to the door.

      Well being? 'Well, be at your station working, or else.'

    2. DwarfPants
      Headmaster

      Re: *Sobs Openly*

      Absolutely truthful if "Nothing" is considered to be a thing,

      "Nothing" is more important than health and safety.

      and profits are way more important than "Nothing"

    3. c1ue

      Re: *Sobs Openly*

      I read it as: Nothing in Amazon Lingo = Profits.

  6. druck Silver badge

    Injuries per 100 employees

    Is that per week, per month, per year?

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We asked Amazon for any comment on the reports

    Let me pre-empt their response a little:

    Amazon takes health & safety of its slaves extremely serious and we employ world-leading cutting-edge breakthrough innovatively disruptive and forward-looking technologies and policies to ensure our valuable slaves give their utmost to ensure our profits for as long as they can stand and until their cheaper / more efficient replacement can be sourced. As to the anonymous reports, Amazon can not comment on individual cases, but we endeavor to study and analyze such reports in minute detail on a case-by-case basis to ensure they do not surface again and those responsible are helped every step of the way (out) to find new, exciting, job opportunities.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pity the poor billionaires

    The world would be a much better place without the global underclass of (shudder) people. To them, we are just one big human centipede, to be fed crap at one end, and excrete profit at the other. Dear overlord, my humble apologies for existing. Take all my money as some small recompense.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    To parrot an idea I heard somewhere: Amazon needs a new class of shipping. They need to add a checkbox for "if my ship date has to slip by 24 hours so that the poor schmuck picking orders can use the toilet, that's OK by me".

    Amazon is quite likely putting in loads of safety rules and regs (dead workers are bad for profits, crippled workers are bad for PR, which becomes bad for profits). Unfortunately, they probably have five profitability related KPIs for every safety related KPI.

    1. DS999 Silver badge

      They've had that for a while

      When you check out, you are given options about shipping times. For a while they were always offering a $1 digital credit if you were willing to wait. Lately that's mostly gone and instead of waiting a random period of time of around a week or so, you have the option to have it delivered on your "Amazon delivery day" once a week - you don't get any incentive for that I think that's mostly for people worried about porch pirates stealing their stuff while they're at work.

      Presumably any delay can be used to optimize things on their end, but I very much doubt that allows the workers more time to find and put your stuff in a box - they will require the same number of seconds/minutes for that because they those workers to get out as many orders per hour as possible. Even if everyone selected a "one month shipping" option if Amazon is still getting the same number of orders per day they will still want their workers to fulfill the same number of orders per day as if everything was next day delivery.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: They've had that for a while

        Not always. There peak periods when they have to fulfill a huge number of deliveries (Black Friday, etc.) in a little time as long as Amazon have to meet its "Prime" deadlines. Without that, work can be organized differently with more buffers to handle peak times.

        1. DS999 Silver badge

          Re: They've had that for a while

          When it isn't a peak time they'll want to have fewer people working. Why would they pay 1000 people to work at speed x during a busy time, and 1000 people to work at speed 0.6x during a less busy time when they could pay only 600 people to work at speed x instead?

    2. Quinch

      Wouldn't work though - that just means that the shipping load gets moved forward a bit while everything else still churns at breakneck pace. I'd pay extra for shipping if it meant they'd hire more people to shift the load across, but I'm sure it would inevitably just mean it would get hoovered up by the management.

    3. c1ue

      Sounds nice but the buyer's choice is actually irrelevant.

      Amazon makes disproportionately more profits if the same human and capital resources get more done.

  10. ShadowDragon8685

    The only way, frankly, to fix Amazon warehouses is to station a regulator full-time in the Amazon warehouses, empowered to cite at-will.

    Not only that, but empower the regulator in question to take any bribes offered, keep them, and then immediately turn around and arrest the briber, who will be imprisoned and subjected to massive fines (which go to the regulator) as well as Amazon itself subjected to massive, statuatory fines (split between the regulator and the regulatory agency), sufficient to cause Amazon itself to slam down on anyone attempting to bribe the regulator.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

      Sounds like a great job, where can I sign up. I could do with a few peons to shake down for attempting to bribe me. Proof? nah, just take my word for it, they're guilty and I get my share of the cash. Easy to hire someone else.

  11. skeptical i
    Thumb Down

    And yet ...

    ... despite consistent reports of labour abuse by Amazon (and, to be fair, likely other warehouse/ fulfillment centers), mayors and city councils wet themselves with glee at the prospect of getting their very own human meat grinder within city limits. One wonders if these elected officials -- notionally tasked with safeguarding residents' health and well-being -- should be forced to work a year at these jobs (well, no, we don't know who you are, Yer'onner, no idea who you are or what you do besides filling this damn order box) so they can have a better idea what they're cheerleading for. Would they let their families (kids, parents, spouses) work there under these conditions? Or do they really really really like same-day and overnight delivery?

  12. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

    It's the same everywhere...

    In many jobs, for many companies, there are Company Statements, Mission Statements, Company Handbooks, Official Procedure Guides and all sorts of documentation produced by middle managers telling you how to do your job properly and safely, all legal and above board, but down at the coal face, things are inevitably different because all those rules and guidance documents slow the work down.

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