Amazon may have perfected 21st-century technology, but it results in workplace injuries at a 19th-century pace.

Hundreds of robots. Thousands of computers. Billions of bar codes. Miles of conveyors. Tracking packages for faster delivery. Tracking workers for faster termination.

California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, exposed it all. Brutally fast repetitive motion tracked by sensors and computers that determine when a worker slows down enough to terminate him.

More repetitive injuries. More terminated workers. A toxic mix for an attack on post-termination cumulative trauma injuries.

With its annual turnover rate of 100%, Amazon should be the poster child for why post-termination cumulative trauma workers’ compensation claims should be protected. But with more money than most of the world’s governments, Amazon will pay others to front for the company. Bezos can buy bozos. No joke.

And because it has beaten back unions that dare to challenge it, Amazon is accountable to no one.

Protecting legitimate CT claims has never been more important, but we’ve never faced such an opponent with enough money to buy whomever and whatever it wants. 

This opinion is republished, with permission, from the California Applicants' Attorneys Association website.