Trump wants a former Amazon executive to lead the country’s workplace safety agency.
On Wednesday, the president nominated David Keeling to serve as head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, which is tasked with maintaining safe and humane working conditions for American workers. Keeling previously oversaw safety at Amazon and UPS.
Both of those companies have been cited for various workplace safety violations by the very agency Keeling is set to control, if confirmed by the Senate. In 2019, OSHA cited UPS for forcing its drivers to work in “excessive heat” with no air conditioning. That same year, UPS was also cited for fire hazards at packaging facilities. Amazon has been cited numerous times for the dangerous, high pressure environments in their warehouses, as well as the long hours its employees are forced to spend in them. Just last year, Amazon paid a $145,000 settlement over OSHA violations.
Keeling worked as director of safety compliance for UPS from 2011 to 2018 before serving as the vice president of global health and safety from 2018 to 2021, overlapping with OSHA’s 2019 safety citations. The same can be said for Amazon, where he worked from from 2021 to 2023—a time when Amazon had one of the highest warehouse injury rates in the country.
The post Trump Wants This Amazon Exec to Head a Key Worker Protection Group appeared first on New Republic.
