Under the guise of advancing bureaucratic “efficiency,” the new Trump administration has wasted no time in swiftly gutting all of the federal agencies that are responsible for protecting worker rights and consumer safety. Now, in one of the most egregious decisions yet, Trump has tapped a former executive from Amazon—a company that has repeatedly tangled with federal regulators over its disregard for its workers’ health and safety—to head the agency tasked with overseeing worker health and safety nationally.
On Friday, Bloomberg reported that David Keeling, the former director of global road and transportation safety at Amazon, had been named Trump’s pick to head the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA).
If you know anything about Amazon’s long history of worker safety problems, you know how absurd this pick is. OSHA has long tangled with Amazon over its worker safety violations. Those violations stretch back years—and are dotted throughout the long ascent of the company’s vast distribution network. Most recently, the agency cited the company in 2022 and 2023 for various issues, and, last February, Amazon was cited yet again by OSHA for worker protection violations at three of its warehouses. At the time, OSHA’s assistant secretary, Doug Parker, said: “Amazon’s operating methods are creating hazardous work conditions and processes, leading to serious worker injuries. They need to take these injuries seriously and implement a company-wide strategy to protect their employees from these well-known and preventable hazards.”
Meanwhile, a recent Senate investigation into the company’s activities found that Amazon had repeatedly turned a blind eye to its own internal research suggesting its stringent work quotas were resulting in worker injuries.
“I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to President Trump for nominating me to be the next OSHA administrator at the U.S. Department of Labor,” Keeling wrote on LinkedIn. Prior to working for Amazon, Keeling served as the director of safety compliance for UPS from 2011 to 2018, before going on to become the company’s vice president of global health and safety from 2018 to 2021, The New Republic reports. He worked at UPS during the same period when OSHA cited the delivery company for safety violations, New Republic notes. “It is an incredible honor, and if confirmed, I am excited about the opportunity to work with Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling to further OSHA’s mission to enhance workplace safety and health,” Keeling said, via LinkedIn.
Sonderling, who worked in the Labor Department during the first Trump administration, famously issued federal guidance that stated that gig workers were to be considered contractors, not employees—a big win for ride-share giants Uber and Lyft.
Amazon’s response to being called on its breaches with federal regulation has been to attack the federal agencies that issue those regs. Last year, Amazon joined Musk’s SpaceX to file a lawsuit against the National Labor Review Board, accusing the NLRB (which protects American workers’ labor rights) of being “unconstitutional.” Now, should Keeling be confirmed, the company would also have a former company executive running the agency responsible for investigating its worker safety practices.
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