Amazon sued New York Attorney General Letitia James on Friday in an attempt to dissuade her from suing the company over security concerns in two of its New York City warehouses.
The company also asked the court to force Ms. James to declare that she has no authority to regulate workplace safety during the Covid-19 pandemic or to investigate allegations of retaliation against employees who protest their working conditions.
In the case, filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Amazon said Ms. James’s office was investigating pandemic security concerns raised by employees at the large Staten Island handling center and a delivery depot in Queens. It said Ms. James had “threatened to sue Amazon” if it failed to meet its demands, including subsidizing bus services, reducing workers’ productivity demands, returning profits and restoring Christian Smalls, an employee who Amazon fired in the spring.
Mr. Smalls has said he was retaliated against for leading a protest at the Staten Island warehouse. Amazon has said he was fired for going to the workplace for the protest, even though he was on paid quarantine leave after being exposed to a colleague who tested positive for the coronavirus.
Mr. Smalls became the most visible case in the clashes between workers and Amazon, which saw a wave of orders from consumers cringe. As the pandemic spread across the country, many Amazon employees said the company had missed early opportunities to provide better protection against Covid-19.
Amazon has vigorously defended its security measures and took the offensive against its critics. In notes from an internal meeting of senior executives, Amazon’s top attorney called Mr. Smalls unclear and discussed strategies to make him the face of the organizing employee.
In its 64-page complaint, Amazon said its security measures “go far beyond what is required by law” and argued that federal law, not state law enforced by the attorney general in New York, had primary oversight. on workplace safety.
“The OAG lacks the legal authority it claims to have against Amazon,” the company said.
Amazon declined to comment after the filing.
Ms. James said in a statement that the lawsuit was “nothing more than a sad attempt to distract from the facts and evade accountability for its failure to protect hardworking workers from a deadly virus.”
She said her office was reviewing legal options. “Let me be clear: we are not going to be intimidated by anyone, especially by corporate bullies who value profit over the health and safety of working people,” she said.
James Brudney, a professor of employment law at Fordham University, said it was unusual for companies to file the kind of ‘scorched earth’ anticipatory lawsuit Amazon had.
“They want to fight,” he said of Amazon. “They always want to fight.”
Mr. Brudney said federal law in many cases anticipates state enforcement of workplace safety, although there are exceptions that Ms. James could argue.
“It seems reasonable to see if the state can prove its case,” he said. He added that federal surveillance had failed “horribly and tragically” to create and enforce pandemic workplace safety, so states stepped in to address the gaps.
Much of Amazon’s complaint describes the pandemic response, including setting up temperature controls at entrances, providing masks, and offering free on-site testing. It said that according to its calculations, 1.15 percent of frontline workers in New York City tested positive or considered positive for the coronavirus, about half the percentage for the general population in the state.
The complaint was also quoted from an email documenting the New York City Sheriff’s Office unannounced inspection of the Staten Island warehouse on March 30, stating that Amazon “appeared to be going beyond current compliance requirements.”