Articles Posted in Amazon

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A new report is showing little to no change in safety since Amazon pledged to become a safer company. During the early days of the pandemic, it was determined that for every 100 Amazon warehouse workers, 5.9 serious injuries were sustained. (source via CNBC) This was about 80% higher than the serious injuries suffered outside of Amazon’s warehouses. A new report indicates that Amazon employs 1/3 of all U.S. warehouse workers, but accounts for half the injuries. (source via Business Insider) Thus, it comes as no surprise that the recent pushes to unionize at Amazon facilities is driven more by safety concerns and far less by pay increases. (source via Yahoo News) Clearly, unionizing is on the rise at Amazon and it shows no signs of slowing. (source via Fox Business)

It appears that Amazon plans to introduce more robots, AI, and automation to make the warehouses safer for its employees. However, it seems more likely that Amazon only plans to spend money on automation to replace its workers one day. Until then, Amazon has a problem with its robotic warehouses being more dangerous than they need to be. At the Monee facility, 40 workers suffered severe injuries in 2018, and 25 were injured just during the holiday “peak” season, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. If you’ve been hurt in a workplace accident – at your Amazon warehouse job in Cicero, McKinley Park, Pullman, Humboldt Park, Maywood, Joliet, or elsewhere – be sure to reach out without delay to an experienced Chicago workplace injury attorney to discuss your case and find out your legal options.

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According to Amazon, the introduction of robots and other AI devices was supposed to make things easier and safer for the human workers in the mega-corporation’s warehouses. In fact, Amazon still asserts that exact same thing. The statistics, though, don’t seem to mesh with that conclusion, as they point to much higher injury rates at warehouses with robots as opposed to those without robots. What we can definitely deduce from these statistics is that, at these warehouses with robots, injuries are occurring at a very high reported rate that greatly exceeds the industry average. If you’ve been hurt in a workplace accident – at your Amazon warehouse job or elsewhere – be sure to reach out without delay to an experienced Chicago workplace injury attorney to discuss your case and find out your legal options.

Back in 2019, Amazon’s CEO of consumer business told PBS that robots “make the job safer.” The Center of Investigative Journalism did an in-depth analysis of the accidents reported at Amazon’s warehouses across the country and it found that those accident reports told a much different story.

The Center, on its RevealNews.com website, revealed that Amazon’s accident reports showed that, at Amazon warehouses that ship small- to medium-sized packages, “the rate of serious injuries from 2016 to 2019 was more than 50% higher at warehouses with robots than ones without. Even when faced with those numbers, Amazon continued to stress that robots made “jobs safer and more efficient.”

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Another crash involving an Amazon delivery vehicle has ended in tragedy, according to ABC 7 in Los Angeles. The report indicated that the Amazon Prime driver barreled into a stopped police cruiser, triggering two serious injuries and two deaths. While this fatal crash happened far from here, it serves as a reminder that anyone anywhere can find themselves injured (or a loved one killed) in a crash caused by an Amazon delivery driver. If it happens to you here in Illinois, waste no time in reaching out to an experienced Chicago injury attorney to help you pursue your case.

The California tragedy took place in the San Bernardino suburb of Jurupa Valley. It began with a routine two-vehicle crash. The involved drivers exited their vehicles and a county sheriff’s vehicle responded to the scene. The officer parked the patrol vehicle in the “No. 1 southbound lane,” behind the two involved vehicles, the report indicated.

About 40 minutes after the original crash, a southbound Amazon Prime delivery truck slammed into the patrol car. The patrol car careened into the officer and a sheriff’s department volunteer, inflicting major injuries on each of them. The two drivers from the initial crash were also hit and died at the scene, according to ABC 7.

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Amazon warehouse workers know as well as anyone that, when an employer expects workloads and deadlines to be met by too few workers, the employer creates an environment with a clear potential for injury. If you’ve been one of those warehouse workers and you’ve suffered an injury on the job, you should waste no time in reaching out to an experienced Chicago workers’ compensation lawyer to see what benefits may be available to you.

On April 7, 2021, a group of Amazon workers at one of the mega-corporation’s Chicago-area distribution centers staged a walkout to protest working conditions at the facility. According to the workers, the employer has failed to fully staff the center, which has led to more worker injuries.

A report by the Chicago Sun-Times indicated that the walkout included dozens of Amazon warehouse workers employed at the company’s facility in the Gage Park neighborhood. Also joining the demonstration was Chicago Alderman Byron Sigcho-Lopez, WTTW reported.

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Amazon is in the news again and it isn’t good news for some of the company’s warehouse workers in the Chicago area, according to groups that advocate on behalf of those workers. Recent reports say that many workers are being presented with a dismal choice: lose their jobs in the middle of this pandemic-fueled recession or else agree to work 10½-hour-long graveyard “megacycle” shifts at a new warehouse. This comes even as past research has shown that longer shifts often can lead to greater health and safety problems for workers. If you’ve been hurt at your warehouse job in or around Chicago, whether or not you were working exceptionally long shifts, you should take the time to contact a knowledgeable Illinois workplace injury attorney to get the legal advice you need.

According to a report from Motherboard, the aforementioned offer came on January 25 to the workers at Amazon’s McKinley Park warehouse known as DCH1. According to the reports, Amazon informed the workers that the company was closing down DCH1, which meant that those workers had two options: accept work at a new Chicago-area warehouse or else be terminated. The catch was, however, that the positions at the new warehouse involved megacycle work, which meant working four days per week, from 1:20 am to 11:50 am.

The situation facing DCH1 warehouse workers isn’t unique. According to the Motherboard report, Amazon “has been quietly transitioning warehouse workers at delivery stations nationwide to the ‘megacycle’ shift in recent months.”

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Recently, more and more reports have been published pointing out the high risk of injury that the men and women who deliver Amazon packages face. Now, the Denver Post has shined a light on yet another wrinkle in this story: the particularly high risk of harm faced by new Amazon delivery drivers, including from slip-and-fall injuries, dog-bite injuries and muscle strain injuries. If you are (or were) an Amazon delivery driver and got hurt on (or as a result of) the job, you should waste no time in contacting an experienced Chicago injury attorney about your legal options.

New employees in any field tend to be the most likely to suffer on-the-job injuries. One workers’ compensation insurer reported to the Post that, generally, 41% of the claims it receives involve a worker in his/her first year at that job. For delivery drivers generally, that number is higher, at 58%. For the contractors who deliver Amazon packages, that number was much, much higher… standing at 93%!

Those workers’ compensation claims reflected that Amazon package deliverers were most likely to injure their ankles, followed by knees, lower backs, heads and then feet, according to the Post.

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As an Amazon warehouse worker, there are certain risks that come with the job. One thing that you, as an Amazon worker, should not have to accept as “just part of the job” is being placed at an unreasonable risk of exposure to coronavirus. If there is any slight degree of good news, it is that, if you’re placed in that kind of situation, the law may provide you with a remedy though civil action. If that sounds like your workplace circumstances, be sure to act without delay by contacting an experienced Chicago workplace injury attorney.

Reports have come in from Amazon warehouses around the county about workers at risk, and even some who have died. D.G. was an Amazon warehouse worker in Sacramento who had been injured at work. D.G.’s doctor’s orders following the injury stated he was required to remain seated at work at all times. Rather than allow D.G. to remain home during the height of the pandemic and governmental stay-at-home orders, Amazon continued to require D.G. to be present at the warehouse, according to a CNet report.

While at work, he asserted that he had his employer’s blessing to use the internet on his phone, text his wife and chat with other employees stationed nearby. He said he was given no work to do and received no supervision, but he was required to be at the Amazon warehouse’s breakroom 10 hours a day, every day. According to the report, his employer instructed to “sit there watching Netflix if I wanted to,” as long as he was sitting in that room.

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A multi-vehicle chain-reaction accident involving an Amazon semi-truck left two people dead in Houston, Texas shortly before Easter Sunday. Unfortunately, headlines and stories like this are popping up far too often. Amazon trucks are becoming involved in an ever-increasing number of accidents… accidents causing major injuries and sometimes fatalities. If you are injured in Illinois by an Amazon truck, or by a truck driver delivering items for Amazon, you may be entitled to compensation from the massive corporation. To find who owes you damages for the harm you’ve suffered, reach promptly and speak to a knowledgeable Chicago truck accident attorney about your circumstances.

In the Houston incident, the accident, which occurred in the wee hours of the morning, initially wrecked a Mazda, a Chevrolet pickup truck and a Lincoln SUV, according to the Houston Chronicle. The Mazda’s driver and a passenger in the Lincoln exited their vehicles. As they did so, “an Amazon 18-wheeler plowed through the crash site,” according to the report, killing them. A third person, a “Good Samaritan” who had stopped to help, only escaped the big rig’s path by jumping off the freeway overpass, landing some 10-15 feet below, whereupon he suffered serious injuries, according to ABC 13. The ABC report also indicated that the roads were rain-slickened at the time of the crash.

In late January, an Amazon Prime truck headed northbound on I-77 north of Charlotte abruptly crashed into and through a guardrail at roughly 1:00 a.m. Fortunately, in this accident, no one was seriously injured, as the truck collided with no other vehicles and the roughly 13,000 packages that spilled from the trailer generally landed on the grass to the east of the northbound lanes. WSOC, which covered the accident, stated that it was not known “yet what caused the truck to go off the interstate.”

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Many news reports in the past have covered the intense pressure Amazon drivers face to meet delivery deadlines during the winter holiday season, and the safety issues those demands trigger. New reports, however, are highlighting a uniquely 2020 problem: a coronavirus-fueled world where every day is like late December for Amazon drivers. These intense demands and pressures on Amazon’s fleet of drivers has the potential to cause injuries – both to the drivers themselves and also to the other drivers Amazon’s drivers encounter on the expressways and roadways. If you’ve been injured in such an accident, you may potentially have a right to pursue compensation from Amazon itself. Be sure to contact an experienced Chicago accident attorney about the facts surrounding your injuries.

One example of this occurred just an hour away from Chicago. On Dec. 22 of last year, a motorcyclist was involved in a terrible accident, according to a nwi.com report. Allegedly, an Amazon driver, L.H. excited a residence and improperly failed to yield to oncoming traffic. Her van collided with T.D.’s motorcycle, critically injuring T.D., according to the lawsuit he filed.

T.D.’s accident happened near the peak of what is typically Amazon’s busiest season for deliveries. The motorcyclist’s lawsuit alleged that Amazon’s “unreasonable and unsafe demands” placed on drivers contributed to the catastrophic crash. According to the nwi.com report, T.D. asserted in his court case that Amazon delivery drivers “often have to deliver upwards of 250 packages a day, which leaves less than two minutes per package during an eight-hour shift.”

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It is no secret that workers at Amazon distribution centers work in frequently intolerable conditions, even before the onslaught of COVID-19 (Coronavirus).  Amazon itself released data revealing that injury rates at one of its warehouses were three times the industry average.[1]  An investigation by Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting reviewed injury records from 23 of the company’s 110 fulfillment centers showed that the rate of serious injuries was 9.6 per 100 full-time workers – compared to an industry average of 4 per 100.  Workers have described being on their feet for 12 hour shifts, walking a total of 15 to 20 miles in a day.[2]  In at least one warehouse, there have been reports of a vending machine carrying over the counter pain medication for workers.[3]  Workers have complained that every single activity is monitored and tracked, and that they are subject to discipline for such basic activities as using the bathroom or getting a drink of water, and that supervisors receive reports of employees’ bathroom time.[4]  Beyond the Orwellian tracking of employees’ every single activities, Amazon expects its workers to work at a grueling pace, and workers have complained of back sprains, bulging discs, joint inflammation, and chronic pain.[5]


Set against these already disturbing working conditions is the fact that COVID-19 is wreaking havoc in some of Amazon’s warehouses.  As of May 21, at least 8 Amazon workers nationwide had tragically passed away from COVID-19, including one in Waukegan, Illinois.[6]  Amazon has not disclosed how many workers have tested positive.[7]  In fact, a Vice President at Amazon Web Services resigned his position after he alleged that the company was “firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of COVID-19.”[8]  Meanwhile, despite these deplorable working conditions that COVID-19 has worsened, Amazon has seen a surge in business due to people staying at home; this means that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos could be a trillionaire by 2026.[9]

Amazon workers getting hurt and sick at work is not a remote or faraway problem – Amazon has several facilities throughout Illinois and especially in Chicagoland – such as in Joliet, Edwardsville, Wood Dale, Naperville, Monee, and others.  These workers are friends, family, neighbors, who deserve to have a safe and healthy place to work, where they are not treated like machines and are not at risk for contracting a deadly disease.

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