Rep. Norcross Calls for OSHA Investigation into Amazon Warehouses After Reports of Skyrocketing Injuries

WASHINGTON, DC – Congressman Donald Norcross (NJ-01), a member of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee, and a co-founder of the Congressional Labor Caucus, called for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to investigate Amazon over skyrocketing injury rates at its New Jersey warehouses.

“I am deeply troubled by the injury rates at Amazon facilities in New Jersey and nationwide. Workplace safety at Amazon’s New Jersey warehouses is clearly not a priority, otherwise the rate of injury would be decreasing — not skyrocketing,” said Congressman Norcross. “This apparent disregard for the health and wellbeing of Amazon warehouse workers is unacceptable. Therefore, I am calling on OSHA to conduct a prompt and comprehensive investigation into the work conditions at Amazon’s New Jersey warehouses – and nationwide if needed – to identify deficiencies in Amazon’s policy and culture that have led to these harrowing reports. I refuse to accept these drastic injury rates as a cost of doing business, especially when injury rates at non-Amazon warehouses are so much lower.”

According to workplace injury data provided by Amazon to OSHA and an analysis conducted by New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) and Rutgers University (RU), the overall injury rate at Amazon’s warehouses in New Jersey increased by 54% in 2021 from 2020. Fifty-five percent of those injuries are categorized as serious. The NJPP-RU report comes on the heels of research released by the Strategic Organizing Center that found the serious injury rate among Amazon workers nationwide was 88% higher than the serious injury rate at all other similar employers in 2021.

Congressman Norcross first announced he intended to request an investigation of Amazon’s workplace safety track record at a private meeting with members of the Congressional Labor Caucus yesterday, where Amazon Labor Union President Chris Smalls was the featured guest.