The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created 50 years ago to assure that America’s workers have safe and healthful working conditions free from unlawful retaliation.
Donald Trump hired David Keeling, who had been Amazon’s “director of global transportation safety” to oversee OSHA―even though a Senate report found that Amazon warehouses are twice as dangerous as its competitors.
This year, we’ve already seen reports of Amazon workers dying on the job on a near monthly basis, including incidents in Oregon and North Carolina. Why would we trust Amazon’s safety head with the country’s workers?
Before Amazon, Keeling held multiple safety roles at UPS until his departure in 2021. In 2019, OSHA cited UPS for forcing drivers to work in “excessive heat,” and found that from 2015 to 2018, at least 100 UPS drivers had been hospitalized for heat related injuries. Again, why would we trust a guy who had a safety leadership role at a company that committed serious OSHA violations to…lead OSHA??
Now, as we head into an El Niño summer that experts predict will break temperature records nationwide, OSHA has weakened its own Heat National Emphasis Program by removing concrete inspection goals, leaving workers at risk of going without protections against extreme heat, like access to water and cool-down breaks.
Without federal heat standards, workers face life-threatening risks including heat-related deaths and chronic kidney disease.
Amazon is notorious for its overheated warehouses, just as UPS denied its drivers air conditioning until mandated by a union contract in 2023.