EOH 402 SLP 3 Environmental and Occupational Health

Environmental and Occupational Health
Student Name
Institutional Affiliation
Environmental and Occupational Health
Currently, Amazon is the world’s largest retailer and serves its clients in more than 140 fulfillment centers across the U.S. The company has become a choice for many clients in the U.S. and outside due to its efficiency to deliver products. However, many clients do not know what it takes to get their orders on time. In Amazon fulfillment centers, there has been complains and compensations resulting from back injuries. An investigation by the Guardian in 2018 revealed that Amazon workers were being treated in ways that left them unable to work after workplace accidents occurred. In one instance, Allen, an employee in one of the fulfillment centers injured her back on October 24, 2017. She was counting goods on a workstation that did not have a brush guard, which prevents products from falling on the floor (Sainato, 2018). As a result, Allen used a tote bin to compensate for the missing equipment and in the process hurt her back because of counting goods in an awkward position. The triage team at Amazon gave her a heating pad to use her back as the management sent her everyday home without compensation.
Ergonomics is concerned about designing the workplace to fit the workers rather than having the workers fit in the workplace. For Amazon to deal with the occupational hazards in the warehouses, it can apply the following measures. Firstly, the company needs to allow workers in the warehouses to have regular breaks to stretch (Luttmann et al., 2003). Repeating the same job motion throughout the day is a major cause of back injuries. Hence, allowing the workers to take some breaks can assist them in stretching in an attempt to reinvigorate their muscles and work out some kinks that might have accumulated during the working hours. Secondly, the workers nee...