> The figures also show a "shockingly high" number of severe injuries at JFK8, Kearl said. According to the report, workers whose injuries were logged by Amazon were each forced to miss an average of 64.04 days of employment.

But Amazon's response is bullshit. The data is from government stats, and the reporting threshold is the same as it ever was (basically, if an employee is admitted to the hospital):

https://www.osha.gov/report.html

Amazon's PR people are pretending the high numbers are because they are reporting papercuts, but papercuts would be rejected for the government stats. This is "severe injury or death" reporting only.

"According to the report, workers whose injuries were logged by Amazon were each forced to miss an average of 64.04 days of employment."

Does that sound like papercuts? An average of three months off work, if they even return?

> The data is from government stats, and the reporting threshold is the same as it ever was (basically, if an employee is admitted to the hospital)

This is wrong. It's from an analysis of Amazon's own incident logs that OSHA requires companies to keep (OSHA form 300A[1].) The government doesn't "reject" incidents from these logs. Additionally, a recordable injury is any of the following[2]

  - Any work-related fatality.
  - Any work-related injury or illness that results in loss of consciousness, days away from work, restricted work, or transfer to another job.
  - Any work-related injury or illness requiring medical treatment beyond first aid.
  - Any work-related diagnosed case of cancer, chronic irreversible diseases, fractured or cracked bones or teeth, and punctured eardrums.
  - There are also special recording criteria for work-related cases involving: needlesticks and sharps injuries; medical removal; hearing loss; and tuberculosis.

That's very different than "severe injury or death" only.

[1] https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/new-osha300form1-1-04-For...

[2] https://www.osha.gov/recordkeeping/

Sorry, I agree with you. I think the 15 represents the truthful amount of serious injuries. I'm saying the 3-4 was likely underreported to some degree for whatever reason.

Companies do that to muddy the waters while also pushing policy that punishes people for reporting “real” injuries. Also these are lost time accidents. They could not have been previously hidden.

Lost time or job restrictions. It could be true that Amazon is more aggressive about restricting work after an injury resulting in more reports.

They could via a policy that quietly fires people who are too poor to afford a lawyer when they're injured on the job.