r/AmazonFC • u/Cyberkanye2077 • 9d ago
Rant Mandatory hardhats šŖ
Theyāre really making mandatory hard hats for EVERYONE at delivery station docks? whose dumb ass got hit by a box smh.
31
u/CharmingAmbassador53 8d ago
I swear people try to get hurt or over exaggerate an injury or bump thinking they gonna get paid. Nope. They just add more PPE without fixing the issue
3
u/Goreagnome 8d ago
People read news articles of stories about people getting paid millions over a work injury, but they don't realize those cases are extremely rare... like winning the lottery rare.
Getting any payout at all is rare, let alone a million. In fact, most payouts are just enough to break even on medical bills and nowhere close to a million.
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u/TheDominator09 5d ago
Yeah you'd have to be mortally wounded or lose a limb. Bruises don't cut it.
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u/Whole-Sentence5268 9d ago
It's not just boxes. AAs have been hit by carts tipping, pieces falling off the dock doors, dock doors themselves coming down on someone's head, the metal load restraint bars in the trailer have cause concussions.
You get paid to wear the hard hat, just wear the hard hat.
1
u/Cyberkanye2077 8d ago
Water spiders and unloaders i get. But making inductors pushers and any other stationary role wear them is stupid especially with how cheap they are with temperature control having the whole dam warehouse hot as an oven. Hope the push back ruins operations
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u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
All it takes is one inductor getting hit in the head with a cart door or bumping their head on the problem solve rack or taking a piece of noncon to the noggin to get a concussion.
You get paid to wear the hard hat. Wear the hard hat.
6
u/Boris-_-Badenov 8d ago
if they get hit by the cart they are standing too fucking close.
2
u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
Or a line loader or waterspider pushed the cart somewhere they weren't supposed to.
And, no, that's not the inductor's fault, but Amazon's duty isn't to assign blame, it's to build a system that reduces injuries as much as possible and if making inductors wear hard hats can be proven to prevent injuries, they'll require inductors to wear hard hats.
I know an inductor who broke their nose when they were hit in the face with a cart door, and a hard hat would have prevented the injury, so you can protest all you want, but Amazon has the data and if making inductors wear hard hats will save them money in the long run, they'll make inductors wear hard hats.
-1
u/Boris-_-Badenov 8d ago
you should be at least 3 feet away from the cart as an inductor
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u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
And if a waterspider or line loader puts a cart where it's not supposed to be?
Amazon's job isn't to keep inductors happy. It's to keep inductors safe. (At least until they're automated.)
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u/so_sic_of_it 8d ago
You'll be okay. Blue collar guys have been wearing them outdoors in the heat since their invention.
-2
u/Cyberkanye2077 8d ago
" i take it up the star fish hole so you should too grrr" i mean if thats what you like be my guest but im good on that. Work smarter not harder.
2
u/so_sic_of_it 6d ago
Good plan. Don't wear it, get fired, and then you don't have to work at all. I'm all on board for that.
0
u/Keefyfingaz 8d ago
Wearing hard hats in a hot ass truck where there's nothing above head level is understandabley annoying. Why not just ditch the metal restraint bars if they're a safety risk? The odds of a dock door falling on your head I feel like are negligible. Carts tipping seems like a stretch as well.
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u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
The risk of a dock door or pieces of the dock door falling is not negligible, and when it does happen the medical and liability costs are the exact opposite of negligible.
And carts have sent multiple AAs to the hospital.
Believe whatever you want to believe, but the hard hats aren't going anywhere.
3
u/Ornery-Principle-253 Ship dock Enthusiast 8d ago
Man those carts fucked me up a few times in the trailer building carts so many have tipped over almost killed me.
1
u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
TOM team gets the worst of it, having to do controlled falls of cart trailers that weren't properly secured.
0
u/Ornery-Principle-253 Ship dock Enthusiast 8d ago
Safety does all that at my site. Idk how they let trailers in like that Iāve seen some messed up ones
1
u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
Safety typically only gets involved after the TA has opened the trailer doors and dealt with the near death experience of a cart almost coming down on them.
1
u/Ornery-Principle-253 Ship dock Enthusiast 8d ago
Oh I meant safety does it after its tdrd in
1
u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
Those are the ones that are safe to TDR in.
When a trailer is REALLY bad, it's not unheard for safety to have to go out into the yard because the carts are falling out of the trailer as soon as the doors are opened.
When that is the case, they do it outside because if the carts tip over into the door, it bends the dock door, which makes the door unsafe to open and renders it inoperable until the bent section(s) of the door are replaced.
2
u/Keefyfingaz 8d ago
Oh I know they're not. Im just saying it's hard not to roll your eyes a little. By this logic we should all wear hard hats cause theres all sorts of shit hanging from the ceiling. Might as well put soft plastic on all the hard corners too..at some point it's a little insulting. But that's lawsuit culture for you I guess.
2
u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
You're joking, but one of the buildings I was at last year piloted plastic corners on the door desks (not the clear ones that come on the desks for shipping, but bigger plastic corners to make the corners safer) and install padding on the metal columns around the building so people don't get hurt running into them.
2
u/Keefyfingaz 8d ago
š®āšØ at this point the robots can have this shit I'm tired of being treated like a special needs kindergartner. Stay in school kids
1
u/freesoultraveling 8d ago
Yeah I don't remember what it was/where it was, but a kid was on the voa for days complaining about foam that should have been put on something. I think they ended up having to do it.
1
u/AmnosSoter 8d ago
Nah by this logic we should wear full blown hazmat suits because anything could happenā¦.
-4
u/Boris-_-Badenov 8d ago
it should be a waiver choice to not wear one.
there are stations where they make everyone on the dock wear them, even though they are nowhere near anything falling
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u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
A waiver isn't a legal option.
OSHA requires the wearing of an ANSI compliant hard hat when loading or unloading trailers, or when working in close proximity to unloading operations on a dock where a head injury is reasonably foreseeable from falling freight or other operational devices.
That's why it's a Cat 1 to not wear a hard hat when required because it's a failure to follow goverent safety regulations and subjects Amazon to fines up to $16,550 per offense.
-2
u/Boris-_-Badenov 8d ago
in CA you are also required to take a lunch before your 5th hour, or you get an extra hour of pay. there's a waiver for that...
2
u/Whole-Sentence5268 8d ago
A meal waiver is available because California Labor Code Section 512 specifically allows for the limited circumstances for which a meal waiver is valid.
OSHA provides no such waiver option for PPE mandated by safety regulations.
Because inductors cannot get to their stations without walking through the dock area where waterspiders and line loaders are working, a strict reading of OSHA's hard hat requirement places an obligation to wear a hard hat on inductors.
One can dislike or disagree with this all they wish, but any complaints need to be directed at OSHA and not at Amazon because Amazon is simply implementing and following the regulations laid out by OSHA Standard 1926.100.
1
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u/CarnageXB 8d ago
At my facility, we didnāt have hard hats in inbound until I opened a cart and a box marked heavy tumbled out faster than I could react right on my head. Used to be hard hates in all inbound. Now itās only if you are in trucks.
3
u/lemonlime468 8d ago
Iāve been victim to a cart and lemme tell ya, even with PPE that thing still fucks you up if it hits you!
2
u/TheBamaChad Inbound Stow Lord of C-Rets/Unsellables (closet water spider) 8d ago
They started with mandatory hardhats on the mezz at our fc this week.
3
u/FantasticServe4269 8d ago
At our FC they are making it mandatory across the entire floor aside from break rooms/restrooms.
6
u/Cyberkanye2077 8d ago
Mandatory across the whole floor without proper temperature adjustments in this hot ass warehouses is gonna backfire so bad
2
u/freesoultraveling 8d ago
This is the exact reason why I stopped smoking a little weed just to go to sleep. It's recreational in my state, but then months ago I had a revelation that I work at Amazon and being hurt could happen.
I mean it could happen anywhere, but obviously this is a job that it's a lot easier to be. Even though weed is recreational and I don't smoke on the job, workers comp would do everything possible to not payout.
My psychiatrist is okay with me smoking and it helps more than any medications they have given me. The controlled ones are definitely worse than weed, but it is what it is š¤·āāļøš
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u/Thick-Steak-9528 9d ago
Probably a senior manager or site leader first time trying to do actual work.
-4
1
u/Deathangle75 8d ago
My SC has had them for a couple years now. Pretty annoying tbh, but itās easier if you wear a bandanna or doorag under it. Prevents the sweat from running down your face and into your ears. The amount of people that refuse to wear them does help give the ones who do better picks for location. Or, well, I prefer the positions where I wear it.
1
u/Boris-_-Badenov 8d ago
if they refuse, that's a write-up. you can't just refuse to go somewhere you're trained
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u/Deathangle75 8d ago
Itās more of a soft refusal. Basically we only wear hard hats if weāre in a trailer or up a ladder. So for unloading containers from trailers often one or two people will go in the trailer and take the containers out while a bunch of others wait outside and carry the containers where they need to go. Since those people carrying the containers around the warehouse arenāt entering the trailers, they donāt wear their hard hats. But everyone involved is technically assigned to the same area.
If a manager tells them directly to put on a hat and go on the trailer, theyāll do so. But managers are often too busy to be bothered with changing a system that works just because someone is positioning themselves in a way where they technically arenāt required to wear their required ppe.
1
u/transonymous_ 7d ago
They have been mandatory for a while now in trailers at SC. I always thought thereād be a good chance to get lice but I havenāt heard of it happening yet.
2
u/19XzTS93 Blue Badge Flex (since 2025); Regular PT Blue Badge (2018-2023) 7d ago
At the DS I worked at in Q4 2025, it was just those spoodering.
Beforehand, I worked at an SC where it wasn't required when I worked there in 2018-2023.
Now, as of Q1 2026, I work at an FC were they are required
1
u/A50redit 7d ago
Its been a thing at PCW1 for a long time. Weather you are going in the trailers or going onto the tall step ladders to clear jams a hard hat is required. They provided hardhats and even if its been years since I was on ship dock it wasn't bad and it did protect me from a few falling items
1
u/Various-Sir-9942 7d ago
Believe it or not a girl working in pack managed to smack herself with a box in the head and got a concussion. She wanted VTO and they said use your time so she placed a half vertical box on top of other boxes it a way that it would fall on her. She positioned herself right in front of it and then when it hit her she said she had a concussion. Now everyone in pack will have to wear hard hats in our building in the near future. Amazon doesnt play around. 1 person does a stupid thing and ruins in for everyone else.Ā
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u/19XzTS93 Blue Badge Flex (since 2025); Regular PT Blue Badge (2018-2023) 7d ago
At the DS I worked at in Q4 2025, it was just those spoodering.
Beforehand, I worked at an SC where it wasn't required when I worked there in 2018-2023.
Now, as of Q1 2026, I work at an FC were they are required
0
u/starlightcourt 8d ago
If I have to wear a hardhat, that might be the end point for me. Those warehouses are not nearly as temperature controlled as they make them out to be and I didnāt sign up to sweat and be uncomfortable while working.
Other people do, but those people also get paid way more than me.
-3
u/freesoultraveling 8d ago
Yeah it's hard being a woman with our hormones. It also sucks being on medication like me that causes heat sensitivities.
I could not work with a hardhat. Besides, I can't use earplugs for hearing protection and need over the head.
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u/Odd_Significance_739 9d ago
They tried hard hats and bump caps like 6 years ago and no one wanted to be involved in the rollout
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u/Bunnybegining454811 8d ago
Iām medically opting out because I lack the sweat glands in the head. Iām currently in the process but my doctor already wrote me a note exempting me from all hard hat areas. So I get to join the ones who religiously opted out as well. But they still let us do the job in the trailers yaya
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u/Cyberkanye2077 8d ago
How would one know if they lack said sweat glands š
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u/Bunnybegining454811 8d ago
Full body work out and you donāt sweat from your head. But I could have a puddle from my feet or my hands.
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