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NOTEBOOK – One Good Read: Amazon warehouse reports show worker injuries

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Amazon.com recently confirmed it’s locating a delivery station in Grimes and little doubt exists that it is building a fulfillment center in Bondurant. The two centers will likely create more than 1,400 new jobs with a minimum pay starting at $15 an hour. By early 2020, Amazon expects to add more than 30,000 full- and part-time workers to its workforce of 750,000. Many of those jobs will be in fulfillment centers and delivery stations. But it’s in those workplaces that an investigation by Reveal from the Center of Investigative Reporting found that the company’s goal of quickly delivering packages to customers has “turned its warehouses into injury mills,” reports Will Evans for the Atlantic, which collaborated with Reveal in the investigation. According to the report, injuries at 23 of Amazon’s 110 fulfillment centers were more than double the national average for the warehouse industry. “According to Amazon’s own records, the risk of work injuries at fulfillment centers is alarmingly, unacceptably high,” David Michaels, the former head of the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told Evans. Amazon declined interview requests, although it did provide written answers to some questions. A spokeswoman told Evans in a written response that “Amazon’s injury rates are high because it’s aggressive about recording worker injuries and cautious about allowing injured workers to return to work before they’re ready.”

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