The Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Amazon have entered into a corporate-wide settlement to help better protect employees from hazardous working conditions leading to serious lower back and other musculoskeletal disorders at Amazon facilities, the agency said in a statement issued on Dec. 20, 2024. The settlement agreement resolves the department’s multiple ergonomics cases against Amazon.com Services LLC, in the first major multi-site investigation brought by OSHA in over a decade.

The parties had been scheduled to begin trials in 10 cases before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission between January and June 2025 stemming from inspections conducted across 10 Amazon facilities beginning in the summer of 2022.

“This corporate-wide settlement agreement focuses on improving conditions for several hundred thousand Amazon workers nationwide,” said Assistant Secretary for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas L. Parker in the statement. “The agreement requires Amazon to assess ergonomic risk across its facilities, including through annual updates, and investigate and implement controls to reduce ergonomic risk. The ball is in the company’s court. OSHA stands ready to work with their ergonomics team to evaluate their progress and verify the commitments they made to OSHA.”

“Corporate-wide settlements can be a critical tool to protect workers from health and safety violations because they protect the most workers and can incentivize companies to solve underlying problems. This settlement requires Amazon to take action at the corporate level to ensure corporate-wide ergonomic requirements are effectively implemented at its warehouses nationwide,” said Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda. “The Solicitor’s Office supports agreements that require employers to demonstrate their commitment to solving complex problems and work with OSHA on improving their processes. Amazon must do so under this agreement, and the department has the ability to enforce the agreement in court should the company fail to live up to its commitments.” The Solicitor’s Office, led by the New York regional office, had been engaged in active litigation against Amazon in these cases for nearly two years.

Terms of the agreement

The agreement requires Amazon to take action at the corporate level to ensure ergonomics requirements are effectively implemented at each Amazon facility covered by the agreement. The agreement will apply to all of Amazon’s fulfillment centers, sortation centers, and delivery stations, among other facilities, in federal OSHA’s jurisdiction and provides for an alternative dispute resolution process intended to quickly address and correct ergonomic hazards raised by Amazon workers. OSHA was seeking nationwide relief in the case, which the presiding OSHRC judge ruled last year that OSHA could pursue.

The agreement also memorializes ergonomic safety measures that Amazon has implemented at facilities cited by OSHA for ergonomic hazards in 2023. OSHA retains the right to conduct an onsite inspection and enforce under the OSH Act if Amazon fails to meet the requirements of the corporate-wide ergonomics plan or otherwise fails to comply with the agreement, or if OSHA believes that additional controls exist that are feasible and likely to reduce ergonomic risks.

The parties will meet biannually to discuss leading and lagging indicator data, including MSD injury trends; the status of pilot projects and controls intended to address ergonomic risks; and elements of Amazon’s corporate ergonomic program. Amazon will also pay a penalty of $145,000, over 90 percent of the amount assessed by OSHA in the ergonomics citations.

The agreement also contains the following commitments:

• The corporate ergonomics team must conduct ergonomic risk assessments, identify and pilot engineering controls, provide ergonomic support and expertise to local sites, and have a designated Site Ergonomics Lead. SELs must review corporate’s ergonomic risk assessments and prepare their own site-level ergonomic risk assessments. These must be updated annually or sooner if a change occurs that increases ergonomic risk. SELs must also investigate and implement feasible site-specific controls. Amazon must ensure that SELs, site-level safety and health staff and site employees receive ergonomic training.
• Amazon must offer and maintain multiple methods for employees to communicate with Amazon regarding ergonomic concerns and potential solutions, including methods that permit employees to submit concerns anonymously if desired.
• Amazon must also evaluate the effectiveness of its corporate-wide ergo program by tracking sites’ compliance with it, including analyzing training requirements, SEL assignments and site ergonomic risk assessments.
• The agreement authorizes OSHA to conduct monitoring inspections at the locations where OSHA cited hazards, including access to documents and witnesses relevant to Amazon’s implementation of its ergonomics program.
• The agreement also identifies ergonomic safety measures that Amazon has implemented at various local sites, including adjustable height workstations, a redesign of packing stations, new conveyors, ergonomic mats, scanner harnesses, updated Go Carts, job rotation, and a new sortation system. The agreement is for a term of two years, although either party may seek to terminate the agreement after the first year.

This agreement does not impact the ongoing investigation by the U.S. Attorney of the Southern District of New York concerning, among other things, whether Amazon is engaged in a fraudulent scheme to hide its true injury rates and worker safety hazards at Amazon warehouses around the country.