Lawsuits Against Amazon
Workplace Harassment and Other Injuries Attributed to Amazon
Lawsuits Against Amazon have been steadily increasing in number, with many cases currently pending. Amazon is one of the world’s largest online retailers, and they are famous for their huge turnover rate. Every day there is another lawsuit against them. So many people are filing claims, and so many of these claims are finding their way into jury trial or even to the trial judge. These are all part of a much larger problem of lawsuits that are not clearly labeled as being a result of Amazon’s wrongdoing, but are instead being filed as a result of someone’s upset over being fired from their job.
In a few different types of lawsuits, one type of problem has surfaced: employers who say that they did not give their employees the training they needed to comply with Amazon’s warehouse policy.
Amazon’s warehouse policy requires that all of their employees are on their computer at all times, and that they check their work email on an hourly basis. This policy also requires that they take breaks in between their work and visit the company website to check their email. But the problem here is that it is very hard to enforce this rule without making the employees’ jobs much more complicated.
There are two major ways that Amazon can try to alleviate this problem.
The first is to simply outsource jobs to temp agencies. But this will not fix the basic problem of employees not checking their work email, and it will force Amazon into the costly process of providing training to each new temp employee that they hire. The second way that Amazon could handle these lawsuits is to open large warehouses on their own land, which will offer both benefits to their employees, and will also make Amazon much more money. Unfortunately, until recently, this was not an option available to Amazon.
A recent case involves allegations that the retail giant systematically abuses its warehouse workers.
The case was brought forward by Warehouse Workers Local Union and is one of the lawsuits against Amazon that have made it all the more interesting. According to the complaint, Amazon systematically breaks down individual cubicles and does not give their employees proper restroom facilities, even when the workers have union rights to organize. Furthermore, Amazon does not follow any procedure to verify whether or not the claims of these injuries actually exist. If true, this would be a clear case of workplace abuse, and it may lead to a class action lawsuit filed by the workers themselves.
Amazon’s most obvious defense is that it has no proof that it engages in any wrongdoing.
However, this defense overlooks several important facts. For one, according to The Washington Post, Amazon regularly pays over five hundred million dollars in damages to settle lawsuits brought against them. Secondly, even if Amazon has not been found guilty of any wrong doing, it would still be in violation of the law for them to allow their employees to work in such conditions. Class action lawsuits filed by individuals are typically non-frivolous, and the courts are usually very reluctant to grant them.
In addition to these two major factors, there are many other possible causes for these type of workplace accidents.
Amazon is simply being careful not to get into trouble with the government or the labor unions over their treatment of their warehouse workers. On the other hand, the very low pay that they pay makes it easy for them to keep wages low, while still giving them the profits that they desire. No matter what the reason, if your job was terminated or injured at work because you signed a contract agreeing to work in these conditions, then you may have a case.
