Ambulances called to Amazon's UK warehouses 1,400 times in five years
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
> In 2018, a freedom of information request from the GMB union found that a Tesco warehouse in Rugeley, near Birmingham, recorded only eight ambulance callouts in three years versus the 115 logged at a nearby Amazon site. Both warehouses employed large numbers of workers at the time – 1,300 at Tesco’s site and around 1,800 at Amazon’s.
Not enough for me to get a conclusive picture. But sounds like it would make sense to take a deeper look.
Even worse, it happens at some nursing homes for anything worse than a bandaid.
"You have nurses! Even moreso, you're charging the patient/their family for '24/7 Nursing Care!'", meanwhile grandma has a slightly swollen foot and you're calling 911 to CYA or be lazy.
999 operators will triage and prioritise ambulances based on the symptoms being exhibited.
True...there's a difference between having a policy and it being enforced, though. The article also contains a quote from a union organiser who seemed to cast doubt on that "We know from our members in Amazon warehouses that first-aiders are actively discouraged from ringing ambulances – instead told to take taxis"
I know I'm not coming from a neutral place here...I detest Amazon utterly, but I have been around too many large companies for too long to know that the "policy we quote" vs the "behaviour we enforce" are two entirely different things.
I opted to have a coworker drive me to the hospital while I was bleeding rather than wait for an ambulance.
In my situation, it would be 10 minutes for an ambulance, 10 minutes to the hospital versus 10-15 minutes directly to the hospital…
left’s capitalist whipping boys - this is not without reason. How many times do you hear negative stories about Costco (as an example) mistreating their employees vs Amazon? Amazon is beaten up in the press because of their actions - just their union busting practices alone is worth the bad press they’re getting
Is the larger point I was making unclear?
A _liberal_ paper, not a socialist one.
Always calling an ambulance when there's a medical problem may simply be a terrible policy that puts a strain on public resources for the benefit of reduced liability. Tesco may take an approach which is more measured and less of a drain on wider society. There's something up, regardless.
Meanwhile Amazon sells almost everything, including chemicals and batteries. Often sold by foreign (e.g. Chinese) vendors but fulfilled by Amazon, where correct packaging and quality can't be guaranteed. Which has probably been exacerbated since the UK left EU and their safety standards. After all they think they can do better on their own and follow a less-regulated American-style model. This is the flip side of that.
But I still think it's comparing apples to oranges. But yeah it could be that there's really a problem. I don't think this article is really Guardian-level quality. They should have investigated more deeply.
SICK LEAVE POLICY
We get a ton of calls to certain call centers in our area while other large centers generate very few. When management isn't hawking over the patient, I ask them what the sick leave policy looks like. Generally, they can only take a limited number of sick days without triggering some kind of adverse metric that will impact their employment. These metrics can be measured in points, stars or some other arbitrary method to keep track excused vs. unexcused absences.
If you call out sick, that would score the highest in terms of adverse action record keeping. If you "go down" at work, you have more options and the metrics do not generally apply. You can also file a workers compensation claim which you can not generally do from home with a cold. Whether or not the claim is accepted by the insurance agency is another matter entirely. However, it is not a stretch to see why a bad sick leave policy would lead to employees figuring out ways to circumvent the policy without damaging their employment status.
These types of abuses, again in the states, are so prevalent that we joke about it at the station. The EMS system is abused from top-to-bottom and there is nothing to hold anyone accountable. It is simply going to break someday and that will be that. I can say that it seems the day when there are no ambulances available is drawing closer and closer... It already happens a few times a day in my city.
(Removed an incorrect comment about a lack of comparisons.)
> In 2018, a freedom of information request from the GMB union found that a Tesco warehouse in Rugeley, near Birmingham, recorded only eight ambulance callouts in three years versus the 115 logged at a nearby Amazon site. Both warehouses employed large numbers of workers at the time – 1,300 at Tesco’s site and around 1,800 at Amazon’s.
> Amazon centres in Dunfermline and Bristol had the most ambulance callouts in Britain, listing 161 and 125 across the period respectively.
In Dunfermline, that's two to three ambulances a month; in Bristol it's one every other week
> In 2018, a freedom of information request from the GMB union found that a Tesco warehouse in Rugeley, near Birmingham, recorded only eight ambulance callouts in three years versus the 115 logged at a nearby Amazon site. Both warehouses employed large numbers of workers at the time – 1,300 at Tesco’s site and around 1,800 at Amazon’s.
Noted in the Vice article linked from the article:
> The Asos warehouse in Barnsley, South Yorkshire, had the highest number of ambulance call-outs of the four brands. Between 2014 and 2019, there were 231 ambulance call-outs to the building. Almost three-quarters (72.2 percent) of call-outs resulted in the worker taken to hospital for further treatment.
231 is higher than the Amazon Dunfermline center, but it also notes the Asos warehouse employs 3000 people, while Articles elsewhere indicate the Amazon center employs 1200. Amazon's per call rate is around one call per 26 employees per year, while Asos's is one call per 64 employees per year.
Notably, 2.5 ambulances a month to a warehouse employing 1200 people indicates an about 2.5% chance of any given employee needing an ambulance over the course of a full year.
> A spokesperson for Amazon said it “strongly refutes the suggestion that it is ‘dangerous’ to work for Amazon. Safety is always the absolute priority”. They also denied the GMB claim that ambulances were sometimes not called: “As a responsible employer, we will always call an ambulance if someone requires emergency medical attention.”
> The spokesperson said the figures were misleading, citing the huge size of Amazon’s workforce and the fact that it logs, in its self-reported data, 50% fewer injuries with the HSE on average than other transportation and warehousing businesses.
> They added that the “vast majority” of ambulance callouts related to “pre-existing conditions, not work-related incidents” and that Amazon “will always call an ambulance if someone requires medical attention”.
If Amazon is more willing to call an ambulance for smaller things...
(not defending Amazon, just stating that if there's a lower threshold to call an ambulance)
They're the same picture.
So in an average work week of 7 days ambulance is called more than 5 times. On any given day there was 77% chance of an ambulance getting called. That shows an absurdly high percentage of calling an ambulance. But keep in mind a lot of minor injuries don't result in ambulance calls.
>The Observer gathered the information by filing freedom of information requests to 12 ambulance services. While the information related to more than 30 Amazon sites, ambulance services did not record complete data for a significant number of the sites in question, meaning the figures are likely to be an underestimate.