The brand new Occupational Well being and Security Administration (OSHA) investigations are placing contemporary scrutiny on Amazon’s damage charges and workplace-safety procedures, which have lengthy been criticized by labor and security advocates as insufficient.
Division of Labor spokesperson Denisha Braxton confirmed Thursday that the most-recent fatality occurred final week at an Amazon facility in Monroe Township, about 20 miles (35 kilometers) northeast of Trenton. The second probe is wanting right into a July 24 accident at an Amazon facility in Robbinsville. The employee concerned in that accident died three days later, based on Braxton.
In a press release, Robbinsville Police Chief Michael Polaski mentioned police responded to the warehouse, known as PNE5, on July 24 after receiving a report {that a} employee fell from a three-foot (one-meter) ladder and struck his head.
Polaski mentioned the employee was acutely aware and alert when police arrived. However police have been instructed CPR was performed on the individual by different staff previous to their arrival, he mentioned. The individual was transported to a hospital and OSHA was notified of the incident on the identical day, he added.
Police in Monroe Township didn’t instantly reply for a request for touch upon the incident there.
The 2 most up-to-date deaths have been first reported by the USA Immediately Community.
OSHA officers declined to offer further details about any of the deaths, citing the open investigations. The company has as much as six month to finish every probe.
Sam Stephenson, a spokesperson for Seattle-based Amazon, mentioned in a press release the corporate was “deeply saddened by the passing of our colleagues and provide our condolences to their household and buddies.”
“Our investigations are ongoing and we’re cooperating with OSHA, which is conducting its personal critiques of the occasions, because it usually does in these conditions,” Stephenson mentioned.
Final month, OSHA launched one other investigation right into a employee fatality at an Amazon warehouse within the New Jersey city of Carteret in the course of the firm’s Prime Day buying occasion, which turned out to be the most important within the firm’s historical past. Federal officers haven’t launched further particulars in regards to the dying, however information stories have recognized the employee as 42-year-old Rafael Reynaldo Mota Frias.
A spokesperson for Amazon mentioned the corporate’s inner investigation into the Carteret dying reveals it “was not a work-related incident, and as a substitute was associated to a private medical situation.”
“OSHA is presently investigating the incident, and, primarily based upon the proof presently out there to us, we totally anticipate that it’s going to attain the identical conclusion,” the spokesperson mentioned.
Information of the deaths comes amid broader scrutiny into the corporate’s operations. In late July, OSHA officers inspected Amazon services in New York, Illinois and Florida after receiving referrals alleging well being and security violations from the US Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of New York. The civil division of the U.S. lawyer’s workplace can also be investigating security hazards at Amazon warehouses and “fraudulent conduct designed to cover accidents from OSHA and others,” based on a spokesperson for the workplace.