Amazon Employees In Minnesota Have Extremely High Rate Of Work Injuries

By revenue, Amazon is the third largest company in the world, so it clearly has the resources to provide for their employees and keep them safe on the job. However, a new report focused on Amazon warehouses in Minnesota found that not only are employees oftentimes subjected to unsafe conditions, injury rates in Amazon facilities far outpace other injury rates at other warehouses.

According to the report, which was published by the National Employment Help Project, Amazon warehouse workers in Minnesota are more than twice as likely to be injured at work compared to other Minnesota warehouse workers. This finding comes from Amazon’s own injury records, which found that from 2018 to 2020, the rate of injuries at its Minnesota warehouse facilities was 11.1 cases annually per 100 full time-equivalent (FTE) workers.

To put that in perspective, that is one injury for every 9 workers at an Amazon warehouse in Minnesota, and that rate is more than double the rate of non-Amazon warehouses in Minnesota, which is 5.2 cases annually per 100 FTE workers. Moreover, that rate is more than four times the average rate for all private industries in Minnesota over that same time period.

Problems weren’t isolated to just one Amazon facility in Minnesota, but one warehouse stood out from the rest. The data shows that Amazon’s flagship warehouse, the Shakopee fulfillment center, repeatedly reports very high annual injury data. In fact, no industry in Minnesota had a higher average injury rate than the Shakopee Amazon fulfillment center in 2020.

Musculoskeletal injuries make up a large portion of injuries in these warehouses, as warehouse employees are often required to lift and move hundreds of items per hour. They are also electronically monitored and can be disciplined for not meeting quotas, which can lead to a variety of overstress injuries.

Getting Compensation For Amazon Warehouse Injuries

If you or someone you know was injured at an Amazon fulfillment center or one of their sorting warehouses here in Minnesota, make sure you contact an experienced injury lawyer who can help ensure you get the compensation you deserve. We understand that it can be extremely intimidating to go up against a large corporation and the team of lawyers at their workers’ compensation insurance provider, but they don’t scare us. We’ve gone up against large corporations in the past and earned benefits for our clients, and we’re confident that we can do the same for you.

Also, you shouldn’t be leery of filing for injury benefits because you’re afraid that you’ll be fired or have your hours cut for doing so. Retaliation for filing a workers’ compensation claim is illegal, and we’d be more than happy to file a secondary lawsuit if your employee takes undue action against you for pursuing what every employee is legally entitled to do following an on-the-job injury.

So if you are suffering from pain from an acute injury or a chronic pain that has developed as a result of your work in an Amazon warehouse, reach out to Dean and the team at Margolis Law Firm. We’ll put together a strong case and ensure you aren’t overlooked in your quest for compensation. For more information, or to talk to a member of our team about your case and your legal options, give us a call today at (952) 230-2700.