SAN FRANCISCO, April 13, 2022 (BSS/AFP) - Nearly half of all recorded 
injuries in US warehouses occurred at Amazon in 2021, according to a report 
released Tuesday by a coalition of unions. 

   "Amazon employed one-third of all warehouse workers in the U.S., but it 
was responsible for nearly one-half (49 percent) of all injuries in the 
warehouse industry," according to the report by the Strategic Organizing 
Center (SOC). 

   The report said US Amazon workers sustained more than 34,000 "serious 
injuries" on the job last year, a rate more than twice as high as that at 
warehouses not owned by the e-commerce giant.

   The coalition said it relies on data provided by Amazon to the US 
Occupational Safety and Health Administration -- the federal agency 
responsible for preventing workplace injuries. 

   The group did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment. 

   "After relaxing some of its discipline systems in the first months of the 
COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon reimplemented its monitoring systems and production 
pressures in late 2020, and its injury rates rose substantially," the SOC 
said. 

   Hiring at Amazon has spiked during the pandemic.

   In the United States, the company has gone from some 700 sites in 2020 to 
more than 900 in 2021, and from more than 200,000 employees in 2017 to over 
560,000 in 2021, according to the report. 

   In June 2021, Amazon changed working conditions in the country, including 
longer breaks for its workers who prepare, ship and deliver packages. 

   That decision came after a previous damning SOC report, and an attempt to 
unionize at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama. That failed, but the campaign 
exposed what many employees described as the company's infernal pace. 

   "We need a better vision for our employees' success," wrote Amazon founder 
Jeff Bezos in an annual letter to shareholders in 2020. 

   "We are going to be Earth's Best Employer and Earth's Safest Place to 
Work," he promised. 

   But "in stark contrast to Jeff Bezos' recent pledge... the injury rate at 
Amazon facilities increased by 20 percent between 2020 and 2021," the SOC 
said.

   In March, workers at the JFK8 warehouse in New York voted to launch the 
first US union at Amazon.