Some people in New Jersey may have heard about reports of unsafe working conditions at some Amazon warehouses. A number of workers report being injured on the job and left without income. Some even became homeless due to lost work and/or high treatment costs.
According to an April 2018 report by the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, Amazon was one of the so-called “dirty dozen” of dangerous companies to work for. The list also indicated that since 2013, seven Amazon employees have died on the job, and three of those deaths happened at three locations over a five-week period in 2017.
The same month the report was released, a 43-year-old man filed a lawsuit against the company. According to the lawsuit, when he hurt his back on the job at a fulfillment center in Florida, his manager said he was not old enough to have a bad back. He says that before he could get a doctor visit authorized, the company fired him. Another employee at a Pennsylvania Amazon fulfillment center reported getting fired a few weeks after he was injured. Other employees said the work left them exhausted and fatigued and that they quit before getting injured. Amazon has responded by saying it makes the safety of its customers a priority.
People who are injured on the job are usually eligible for workers’ compensation. Unfortunately, workers may not know their rights. They might be pushed out of the company before they can get the paperwork in place as happened with some Amazon employees. Therefore, an individual who is injured at work may want to talk to an attorney about employee rights, how to file a workers’ compensation claim and what to do if the company attempts to retaliate. An injured person might also want to work with legal counsel on an appeal if a workers’ compensation claim is rejected.