(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Ergonomic injuries to Workers are proliferating in the Nation’s warehouses, with an injury rate above national averages for all workplaces, a new report by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) says.

To solve that problem, the GAO issued a range of recommendations for the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) action against ergonomic injuries.

But, thanks to a law Republicans enacted when they first took complete Congressional control 29 years ago, the recommendations are likely to go nowhere.

And the report doesn’t name the prime source of warehouse ergonomic injuries, according to OSHA’s own data: Amazon.

“The Transportation and Warehousing Sector, which includes e-commerce warehouses and last-mile delivery, had the highest serious injury and illness rate of all (19) sectors in 2022, with an estimated (3.8) cases per (100) Workers, according to BLS data,” the last available to GAO, the report says. “Overexertion and bodily reaction, the most common hazard, can cause musculoskeletal (ergonomic) disorders, such as tendonitis or back pain.”

What the GAO does not say is Amazon skews all the OSHA warehouse job injury numbers, including the ergonomic numbers.

Its warehouse injury rate is 6.6 injuries per 100 Workers - and it accounts for more than half of all the ergonomic injuries, though it employs one-third of all Warehouse Workers.

The one-phrase explanation of why Amazon doesn’t fix conditions at its warehouses, which in turn drives up the injury numbers the GAO cites, is “unacceptable corporate greed,” says U.S. Senate Labor Committee Chairman Bernie Sanders (Independent-Vermont).

To Continue Read This Labor News Report, Go To: Report: Ergonomic injuries worst in nation’s warehouses – People's World (peoplesworld.org)