The lawsuit alleges that the company did not close its facilities for cleaning when it learned of employee infections, and that it did not notify employees who had been in contact with infected colleagues. It also alleges that Amazon has not given employees enough leeway at work to clean, socialize, and take other preventive measures.
“During the historic pandemic, Amazon has repeatedly and persistently failed to fulfill its obligation to take reasonable and adequate measures to protect its employees from the spread of the virus” at its facilities in New York City, including a Staten Island enforcement center and distribution center in Queens, the complaint said. “Amazon’s blatant disregard for health and safety requirements has threatened serious illness and damage to the thousands of workers in these facilities and poses a continuing substantial and specific threat to public health.”
Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The dispute between Amazon and New York has been going on for a while. Last week, the company filed a pre-emptive lawsuit and asked a federal court to prevent James from using state law to enforce its requests that the company subsidize public transportation and hire a health and safety consultant.
Describing James’ requests as “exorbitant demands,” Amazon argued in that filing that the existing protections for workers “go far beyond what is required by law” and “go far beyond measures” that the Attorney General has “comprehensively taken. deemed “.
Amazon cited the company’s temperature screening policies, boards advising social aloofness, and dizzying shifts of workers at the Staten Island facility as some examples of how things have progressed. An inspection by the town’s own sheriff’s office, Amazon said, found “absolutely no problem areas.”
Prior to that legal filing, James had discovered that Amazon was not meeting health and safety standards in the company’s warehouses.
And other Amazon critics – including some of its own employees – have said the company has been slow to address the risks posed by the coronavirus to frontline workers.