Amazon realization center warehouse.
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Six senators sent a letter to the Employment Opportunities Commission urging the agency to investigate Amazon’s treatment of the warehouse’s pregnant employees.
Kirsten Gillibrand, D-New York, Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Bob Casey, Jr., D-Pa., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. , on Friday called on the EEOC to investigate Amazon’s “systemic failure to provide adequate accommodations” to pregnant warehouse workers.
Lawmakers say Amazon does not properly modify the work tasks of pregnant employees who are subjected to physically strenuous work that could endanger their health and safety. They also claim that Amazon does not allow pregnant workers to take free time without punishment for pregnancy-related medical needs.
Both actions may violate the Pregnancy Discrimination Act and the Disabled America Act, lawmakers say.
The letter cites several news reports and a previous EEOC complaint filed by an Amazon employee in Oklahoma in 2020 as examples of a “pattern of mistreatment of pregnant employees at Amazon compliance centers.”
In the EEOC’s 2020 complaint, the Amazon worker claimed that the company denied her work transfer requests, penalized her for pregnancy-related absences, and “maintained unauthorized contact. with his doctor to try to change work restrictions, “according to the letter.
Amazon representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in April addressed workplace safety issues in his final letter to shareholders and pledged to make the company “the best entrepreneur on Earth and the safest job on Earth ”.
The company has also previously said it is investing billions of dollars in new safety measures and technologies, including the incorporation of more than 6,200 employees into its occupational safety and health team.
The letter comes as Amazon faces growing pressure from lawmakers to address concerns about warehouse working conditions.
Earlier this week, the California State Senate passed a bill that would require warehouse owners like Amazon to disclose productivity quotas to employees and government agencies and ban the use of insecure quotas that would prevent to workers to take breaks. The bill passed a final vote in the State Assembly on Thursday and is now addressed to Governor Gavin Newsom’s table to sign or veto it.
In May, Washington state workplace regulators fined Amazon $ 7,000 for security breaches at a warehouse in Dupont, Washington, the Seattle Times reported. According to the Times, regulators linked the “very high pace of work” to an increase in injuries to employees at the facility.
Amazon is also facing increasing control of its employees. Warehouse workers at an Amazon facility in Alabama raised safety concerns and inadequate breaks amid a high-profile but ultimately failed union.