Amazon worker dies in Oregon

An Amazon worker died during an April 6 shift at the company’s PDX9 warehouse in Troutdale, Oregon, and co-workers said operations continued nearby. (techcrunch.com) TechCrunch reported the death on April 13 after Amazon confirmed that an employee had died at work the previous week. Workers interviewed by The Western Edge said the man collapsed on the second floor and some employees were told to keep working. (techcrunch.com) Accounts cited by follow-up reports described a manager telling workers to turn away and return to their tasks while one co-worker tried to perform chest compressions. The worker was identified in those reports as a 46-year-old “tote runner,” a job that moves empty bins through the building. (thecooldown.com) Amazon said Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration reviewed the case and determined the death was not work-related. The company told reporters it contacted the worker’s family, offered grief counseling, dismissed employees with pay after the incident, and canceled the night shift with pay. (btimesonline.com) The dispute now centers less on the medical cause of death than on what happened on the warehouse floor in the minutes after the collapse. Worker accounts have focused on whether managers should have stopped nearby operations immediately and cleared a wider area. (yahoo.com) PDX9 has been under scrutiny before. Reveal reported that Troutdale had the highest injury rate in its review of 23 Amazon warehouses, and 26 percent of employees there had reported injuries in the period it examined. (revealnews.org) Amazon’s broader warehouse safety record has also been under federal review. A Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee report released in late 2024 said Amazon workers had been nearly twice as likely to be injured as workers in other warehouses over the previous seven years. (help.senate.gov) Heat has become part of the Troutdale discussion because some workers told reporters the building felt hotter after sound-dampening curtains were installed. Oregon’s heat illness prevention rule has been in effect since June 15, 2022, and applies to indoor workplaces when the heat index reaches 80 degrees Fahrenheit or higher. (oregon.gov) No public report reviewed so far has established heat as the cause of death, and Amazon has rejected that link. What happens next will depend on whether investigators and local authorities release more detail than the company and workers have provided so far. (techcrunch.com)