The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Amazon for allegedly failing to properly record work-related injuries and illnesses at six facilities around the country, including one in Waukegan.
Amazon failed to properly record workplace injuries at its MDW8 facility in Waukegan, OSHA said in a news release Friday. The agency accused Amazon of misclassifying workplace injuries as not requiring time off work or a job transfer or restriction in cases in which they did so. In one case, a worker’s head injury was classified as a muscle strain, OSHA said. In other cases, Amazon did not report required details about injuries.
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Amazon was fined about $8,300 for alleged violations in Waukegan. In total, OSHA issued about $29,000 in proposed penalties for violations at all six facilities cited, which are located in Florida, New York, Colorado and Idaho in addition to Illinois.
The company has about two weeks to either comply with the citations, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director or contest the findings with the agency.
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In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said employee safety was the company’s “top priority” and said Amazon was reviewing OSHA’s allegations.
“We invest hundreds of millions of dollars every year into ensuring we have a robust safety program to protect [employees],” Nantel said. “Accurate recordkeeping is a critical element of that program and while we acknowledge there might have been a small number of administrative errors over the years, we are confident in the numbers we’ve reported to the government.”
“Solving health and safety problems in the workplace requires injury and illness records to be accurate and transparent,” said Doug Parker, assistant secretary for occupational safety and health, in a statement.
“Our concern is that nothing will be done to keep an injury from recurring if it isn’t even recorded in the logbook which — in a company the size of Amazon — could have significant consequences for a large number of workers.”
OSHA opened the inspections this summer after referrals from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. The agency said the investigations remain ongoing. An spokesperson said the agency could not provide more information.
