Covid19 safety – New York filed a lawsuit against the E-commerce company over flagrant disregard for covid-19 safety rules and retaliated against employees who protest, the New York Times has reported. The 67th attorney general of the state of New York Letitia James said that Amazon failed to disinfect two of its facilities accordingly. “Amazon’s extreme profits and exponential growth rate came at the expense of the lives, health, and safety of its frontline workers,” she argued in the New York supreme court complaint.
The company filed an injunction to prevent the lawsuit last week, saying it disagreed with the suit. “We don’t believe the attorney general’s filing presents an accurate picture of Amazon’s industry-leading response to the pandemic,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel told the NYT.
Covid19 safety
In the lawsuit, it states that amazon has been informed of at least 250 employees who had been diagnosed with covid-19, and 90 of those who had worked the previous week. Despite that, the E-commerce company didn’t close and air out facilities where they worked, as expected. Finally, it argued that amazon retaliated against one of its employees, who raised concern at amazon’s Staten Island warehouse.
The E-commerce employees fear that if they speak up and complain about amazon covid-19 response, the company will retaliate against them as well.