Amazon workers have highest warehouse injury rate, labor groups say

The online shopping boom that has turned Amazon into the world's largest e-commerce company has a dark side: the highest industry injury rate for workers who pack and ship the millions of products sent around the globe, according to a coalition of labor groups.

The groups based their analysis, released Tuesday, on injury statistics reported by Amazon to federal regulators and by surveying the company's warehouse workers. According to their findings, Amazon workers are twice as likely to be injured on the job as e-commerce workers for Walmart, Amazon's closest retail competitor. The injury rate for Amazon's delivery drivers — who are classified as contractors rather than full company employees — also have an injury rate that is 50% higher than drivers for UPS, the groups found. "The company's obsession with speed has come at a huge cost for Amazon's workforce," reads the report from the Strategic Organizing Center. (The SOC, formerly called Change to Win, is a coalition of four labor unions: the Service Employees International Union, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Communications Workers of America and United Farmworkers of America.)