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New York Sues Amazon Over Lack of COVID Protections

New York’s attorney general is suing Amazon for allegedly not protecting employees enough from COVID-19 and retaliating against employees who speak out. 

Amazon employees clocking in at the Queens and Staten Island centers were exposed to COVID-19 because of failures at every level, according to the lawsuit filed Tuesday. 

“Amazon’s extreme profits and exponential growth rate came at the expense of the lives, health and safety of its frontline workers,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement. 

James says the lawsuit came about after numerous complaints regarding Amazon’s lack of COVID-19 mitigation measures were sent to her office. 

Last March, an investigation conducted by the attorney general showed Amazon was failing in cleaning the facilities with the proper disinfectants. 

Amazon managers weren’t doing the needed contract tracing when employees tested positive either, according to the lawsuit. Up until last June, COVID-19 positive workers weren’t even being interviewed for close contacts, James said. 

Instead, Amazon relied on surveillance camera footage, while reviewing the video to find out who was exposed took three days, according to The New York Times.  

“This lack of an interview component was inconsistent with public health guidelines and also created a very time-consuming process which did not identify close contacts in a timely fashion,” the lawsuit stated.

At least 90 Amazon employees were allowed to return to work within a week of getting sick with COVID, Attorney General James said. Amazon largely never notified coworkers of potential exposure.

The sections of the Amazon warehouses where infected employees were stationed weren’t properly closed or ventilated, according to the lawsuit. 

James says there were at least 250 COVID-19 infections at the Staten Island warehouse alone. 

When Amazon workers attempted to bring the issues to managers, their concerns were essentially dismissed, the lawsuit said, while some were even retaliated against.

Warehouse workers Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer were found by the New York attorney general to be unlawfully fired and disciplined when they took action. 

Both employees took their grievances public after being brushed off by Amazon supervisors, had filed official complaints with the government regulators, and had been quoted in media reports. Smalls was eventually fired by Amazon, while Palmer was given a final written warning. 

Amazon filed a lawsuit filed a lawsuit last week trying to preempt legal action over its controversial COVID-19 protections by filing a lawsuit against New York’s attorney general. The company claiming New York City authorities signed off on its COVID-19 protocol, referring to a surprise inspection last March found New York City’s package warehouses to be in compliance with COVID-19 guidelines. 

Amazon argues New York is holding the warehouses to a higher standard and is being unfairly treated. 

More than 19,000 Amazon workers have contracted COVID-19 in 2020, according to Reuters. 

This latest lawsuit against Amazon joins a growing list of litigation related to the pandemic working its way through the courts. 

Are you an Amazon worker? What do you think of the company’s COVID-19 protections? Tell us in the comment section below.

The Amazon COVID Protections Lawsuit is The People of the State of New York, et al. v. Amazon.Com Inc., et al., Case No. in New York County Supreme Court.   

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4 thoughts onNew York Sues Amazon Over Lack of COVID Protections

  1. Private says:

    My orientation was in North Haven in early March of 2020. There were about 100 of us stacked in one room for orientation: sharing pens, no masks and everyone was coughing and/sneezing. I then worked in Wallingford CT (BDL5) until late March of 2020 when I was diagnosed with COVID-19. Upon my return, my fellow co-workers and Trainer thought I had quit! No one informed ANYONE that I had COVID-19, which is awful. I told everyone that I knew and/or came in contact with, including the Whole Foods distributor that I closely worked with for 2 days.
    Makes you wonder how many people I could’ve given it to.

  2. Tamiko Lockhart says:

    I worked there in November 2019 to April 2021. While I was working there I contracted Covid-19, couldn’t come in for a whole month’ upon my return the warehouse was still dusty and dirty and they were not cleaning properly. They never shut the warehouse down which they should have, and some days it was impossible to social distance. I also worked at the fulfillment center, in Georgia. They really owe a lot of people for working under these conditions, it’s wrong all the way around.

  3. Private says:

    I’m a manager and when I told my senior manager that I was directly exposed.I was told to come in to work anyways.

  4. Martin Seidman says:

    I worked in North Heaven CT Fullfilment Center and I know for a fact that I was no more than 2 feet from an Area Manager that contracted Covid-19 and I was not even informed or spoken to. That is just 1 incident and I have a compromised immune system. I can give you incidents.

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