A employee activist has sued the Division of Labor (DOL) to power the discharge of data surrounding the deaths of three staff at New Jersey Amazon workplaces in 2022.
The lawsuit says DOL’s Occupational Security and Well being Administration (OSHA), which Amazon says opened investigations into all three deaths, has not responded to a freedom of data act (FOIA) request for paperwork referring to the deaths of Rafael Mota Frias, Rodger Boland, and Eric Vadinsky.
“We have now questions on Amazon’s working circumstances and conduct that we hope to have the ability to reply by means of getting access to these investigations,” the lawsuit filed by Daniel Schlademan says. The lawsuit says acquiring the OSHA paperwork is “important to tell New Jersey lawmakers in stopping additional deaths of Amazon staff.”
Schlademan is an organizer with the On-line to Offline Technique Group, a corporation supporting the Warehouse Life, which advocates for higher working circumstances. Warehouse Life’s present marketing campaign, #ExposeAmazon, facilities on Amazon’s harm price.
New Jersey lawmakers are at the moment contemplating a warmth customary invoice that the lawsuit maintains might need protected staff just like the three who died in 2022 if it had been in place three years in the past.
OSHA Investigating Deaths of Amazon Workers in New Jersey
On August 14, 2024, Schlademan submitted a FOIA request searching for data regarding three OSHA investigations into Amazon’s conduct at warehouses in Carteret and Monroe, New Jersey, together with Inspector notes of investigations; recordings or images; notes of interviews, and any stories summarizing every investigation.
He says he has not obtained any response from OSHA.
Within the case of Mota Frias, Amazon mentioned its personal investigation attributed the loss of life to a private medical situation. In January 2023, OSHA issued a finding that the reason for loss of life was cardiac arrest unrelated to work. Mota Frias died at an Amazon warehouse in Carteret on July 13, 2022.
Amazon says OSHA investigated all three deaths and located no fault on Amazon’s half. OSHA has not launched findings on Boland or Vadinsky.
“These had been tragic incidents and it’s actually disappointing that some persons are working to twist them into one thing they weren’t,” mentioned Maureen Lynch Vogel, Amazon spokesperson in a press release. “As is customary in these conditions, OSHA carried out thorough investigations and closed all three with out citations or allegations of wrong-doing on Amazon’s half, and there’s no proof that warmth was a contributing think about any of them.”
Amazon additionally says it has taken its personal steps to deal with warmth circumstances within the office.
“We respect that legislators are involved with the protection of the group members they characterize. Conserving staff protected is our prime precedence, too, which is why we have already got a powerful, industry-leading warmth administration program, and we’ve seen the constructive security impacts of that effort,” Vogel mentioned. For instance, she mentioned the agency’s warehouses are local weather managed and all Amazon-branded automobiles have air-con, which she mentioned is “above {industry} customary.”
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