Is Amazon Preventing Injuries at Amazon's Warehouses?

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Two thirds of the injuries em at amazon's ontario warehouses were due to repetitive motion over exertion. One worker reported having twisted in a repetitive motion so often that they had cracked a rib, and workers reporting christmas trees falling on them. The mechanism of injury is unclear, but because they are repetitive motion injuries, you literally can't point to a single accident that led to the injury. It's the nature of the work itself that's causing the strain on the body.

Paris Marx is joined by Sara Mojtehedzadeh to discuss the Teamsters’ organizing at Amazon warehouses in Canada and the working conditions that workers face at those facilities.

Sara Mojtehedzadeh is a labour reporter at the Toronto Star and the host of Hustled, a podcast about Foodora workers’ fight for a union. Follow Sara on Twitter at @SaraMojtehedz.

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In June, the Teamsters voted to put resources behind unionizing Amazon.
The Teamsters Canada applied for a union vote in Edmonton, Alberta, and said it’s organizing at nine warehouses. Amazon is hiring 15,000 workers and raising wages.
During the pandemic, the Canadian government signed a deal with Amazon to deliver PPE. The contract fell apart.
After an Amazon worker died in Indiana, the governor intervened to overturn the citations.
California is regulating productivity quotas at warehouses.
Discussions are picking up about sectoral bargaining in Canada.
Sara wrote about the high injury rates at Amazon’s Canadian warehouses and the temporary closure of its Brampton, Ontario warehouse after a Covid outbreak.
Find out more about Teamsters Canada’s Amazon campaign and the Warehouse Workers Centre.