Former Amazon employees sue over alleged discrimination against pregnant warehouse workers, tell me about this news in (https://www.wral.com/news/ap/afcb9-former-amazon-employees-sue-over-alleged-discrimination-against-pregnant-warehouse-workers/)

Four former Amazon warehouse employees filed a proposed nationwide class-action lawsuit in federal court in Brooklyn, New York, accusing the company of systematically discriminating against pregnant workers.The lawsuit, brought on behalf of the workers by the advocacy group A Better Balance and the civil rights law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, alleges violations of the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) as well as New York state labor laws.Key Allegations in the Lawsuit

• Denial of Basic Accommodations: The complaint claims Amazon regularly refused or delayed routine accommodations for pregnant employees, such as access to chairs, water, extra restroom breaks, reduced lifting requirements, and time off for prenatal doctor visits.
• Unlawful Documentation Requirements: The plaintiffs argue that Amazon unlawfully required medical notes from doctors for minor, routine accommodations that federal guidance specifies should be granted immediately without onerous paperwork.
• Attendance Penalties and Firings: When workers took breaks for medical needs or stepped away while waiting for accommodation approvals, Amazon’s automated attendance-tracking systems logged the time as unexcused or “off-task.” This depleted workers’ unpaid time-off banks, resulting in disciplinary warnings and termination.
• Retaliation and Specific Cases:
  • One plaintiff, Willamina Barclay, reported experiencing severe abdominal pain from heavy lifting and was taken from a Rochester warehouse in a wheelchair to a hospital; Amazon treated the incident as an unexcused absence, deducted her pay, and fired her shortly after.
  • Another worker claimed she was disciplined and fired after the system penalized her for time spent pumping breast milk in a company lactation room.

Amazon’s ResponseAmazon strongly disputed the claims. A company spokesperson stated that the allegations contain inaccuracies, omit critical facts, and do not reflect the company’s workplace policies. Amazon stated that it provides pregnancy-related accommodations to tens of thousands of employees every year and approved more than 99.9% of accommodation requests in the past year.Background and ContextThe Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which took effect in 2023, requires employers with 15 or more employees to grant reasonable accommodations for pregnancy, childbirth, and related conditions unless doing so creates an undue hardship. This lawsuit follows years of increased regulatory attention regarding Amazon’s warehouse labor practices, including a previous determination by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and lawsuits by state attorneys general concerning accommodations for pregnant workers and workers with disabilities.