OSHA’s injury data and Amazon, safety person of 2023
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OSHA releases 2022 injury and illness data
OSHA published the 2022 injury and illness data collected from over 300,000 establishments. The agency states that the data provides employers, workers and the public with valuable insights so they can make informed decisions. OSHA also expects the information to improve research on the occurrence, prevention and control of workplace hazards, injuries and illnesses.
Safety at Amazon warehouses
It’s been almost 2 years since Jeff Bezos claimed Amazon would be “Earth’s Safest Place to Work.”
According to the Strategic Organizing Center, OSHA’s injury data shows Amazon warehouse workers are suffering injuries more frequently than non-Amazon workers.
In 2022, Amazon reported a total of 38,609 recordable injuries. The SOC found that those are incidents that require a worker to either take time off from their regular job or seek medical treatment beyond first aid. Of the injuries, 95% were considered serious by the company either because Amazon had to temporarily reassign the worker to a less strenuous role or give them time off to recover.
The SOC found that Amazon’s total injury rate in 2022 was 6.9 injuries per 100 workers.
Comparatively, that’s a better rate than the 7.9 injuries per 100 workers the company recorded last year, and the staggering nine injuries per 100 workers the SOC says Amazon managed in 2019, but the organization contends the data shows Amazon “failed to make meaningful progress on worker safety.”
Specifically, the SOC points to the rate at which Amazon workers suffered “serious” injuries. At 6.6 per 100 workers, the organization says Amazon’s 2022 serious injury rate is 12 percent higher than the one the company recorded in 2020 and more than double the rate seen at non-Amazon warehouses last year.
Safety Professional of the Year
In this next news, we’re going overseas. ASSP recently announced 2023’s Safety Professional of the Year, Subba Rao Palagummi. Palagummi is an oil and gas safety expert who has dedicated over 30 years to advancing occupational health and safety in India, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
We want to congratulate Subba and show appreciation for his efforts on creating safer work environments across the world.
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