They’re suing Amazon for failing to protect their employees from …

The New York Attorney General, Letitia James, Amazon sued for failing to adequately protect its employees during the pandemic. He also accused the company of having “fired and punished” workers who opposed the working conditions imposed by the company since the arrival of the coronavirus in the country.

“While Amazon and its chairman were making billions during this crisis, hardworking employees have been forced to endure dangerous conditions and have suffered retaliation for voicing these concerns.With good reason, ”James said in a statement claiming that the e-commerce giant violated New York state labor laws.

The attorney general said that since last March “it is clear that Amazon values ​​profits more than people and he failed to guarantee the health and safety of his workers “and regretted that the workers who make the country work” are treated the most badly “.

Attorney General James’ lawsuit “concerns Amazon’s inability to protect its workforce in New York. But the story is the same wherever Amazon operates,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of a new agency , in a press release. Union that organizes employees of large warehouses in Alabama.

Amazon’s response

Ahead of James’ trial, Amazon filed a lawsuit last Friday against the attorney general herself, accusing her of failing to consider information the company provided about the treatment of employees during the pandemic and of submitting the group has a chance of blackmail.

He also asked a federal judge to rule that the New York prosecutor’s office does not have jurisdiction to bring these cases to court.

Finally, after learning that the prosecutor had made his complaint effective, a spokesperson for the company insisted that “The health and safety of our employees is extremely important to us, as our trial demonstrated last week “and added that” we don’t think the attorney general’s trial presents an accurate picture of Amazon’s response to the pandemic.

Employee voice

In the early months of the pandemic, Amazon workers revealed the ineffectiveness of the protection offered by the company in a pandemic situation and, in protest, they concentrated on more than one occasion against one of the Staten Island District Hangars, At New York.

At that time, Amazon said it had done more than necessary to limit the risk of contagion, establish a distance between employees and triple the frequency of cleaning the premises. The company’s response, however, was not only to deny the workers, but to persecute them with threats and dismissals.

Faced with this situation, the the prosecution has opened an investigation which ended in April with a letter from James to the e-commerce giant in which he clarified, in coincidence with what had been expressed by employees, that the the protective measures were “inadequate”.

For this reason, the prosecutor demanded a series of conditions from Amazon and warned that if he failed to comply, he would go to court. This Wednesday, he finally decided to make the complaint effective. Among other things, James demanded that the platform redistribute more of its profits, subsidize public transport for employees and lower their work rates and performance indicators.

Amazon, for its part, claims to have offered these subsidies and assures that the measure was not applied because it was met with the refusal of the New York transport authorities. The company also claims to have reduced its pace of work.