New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Amazon on Tuesday night, arguing that the company provided inadequate security protection for workers in New York City during the pandemic and retaliated against employees who raised concerns about the conditions.
The case focuses on two Amazon facilities: a large warehouse on Staten Island and a delivery depot in Queens. Ms. James argues that Amazon failed to clean its buildings properly, performed inappropriate contact tracking for known Covid-19 cases and “took quick retaliatory action” to silence workers’ complaints.
“Amazon’s extreme profits and exponential growth rate have cost the lives, health and safety of its frontline workers,” argued Ms. James in the complaint filed with the New York Supreme Court.
Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for Amazon, said the company cares “deeply about the health and safety” of its workers.
“We don’t believe that the attorney general’s case presents an accurate picture of Amazon’s industry-leading response to the pandemic,” said Nantel.
Last week, Amazon preemptively sued Ms. James in federal court in an attempt to prevent her from opening the charges. The company argued that workplace safety was a matter of federal, not state, law.
In its 64-page complaint last week, Amazon said its security measures “far exceed what is required by law”. He cited a surprise inspection by the New York City Sheriff’s Office that concluded that Amazon “seemed to go beyond current compliance requirements.” The company also detailed other security measures it took, including temperature checks and a free on-site Covid-19 test offer.
New York, in its lawsuit, said that Amazon received written notification from at least 250 employees at the Staten Island warehouse who had Covid-19. In more than 90 of these cases, the infected employee was working in the previous week, but Amazon did not close parts of the building to provide adequate ventilation, as required by the state, the document said.
Ms. James said that until at least the end of June, Amazon had not interviewed infected workers to determine their close contacts and instead relied on reviewing surveillance images, which can take three days and do not cover all the deposit. The lack of interviews “created a very long process, which did not identify close contacts in a timely manner”, says the complaint.
She also argued that Amazon retaliated against Christian Smalls, a worker the company fired in the spring. Mr. Smalls was raising security concerns with managers and led a public protest in the parking lot at Staten Island facilities.
Amazon said Smalls was fired for going to the workplace for the protest, although he was on paid quarantine leave after being exposed to a colleague who had tested positive for the coronavirus.
James ‘lawsuit claims that two Amazon human resources employees discussed Smalls’ situation in writing. Officials said they felt it was unfair to fire him because he did not enter the building and because Amazon had not told him that the company’s quarantine policy prohibited him from staying outside the premises.
Ms. James said that by firing Smalls and scolding another protest leader, Amazon sent a scary message to others.
“Amazon employees reasonably fear that if they make legitimate health and safety complaints about Amazon’s Covid-19 response, Amazon will also retaliate against them,” he argued.
The state said that Amazon should change its policies, conduct training and undergo security monitoring, and that it should pay lost wages and other damages to Smalls and offer him his job back.