Amazon is pre-emptively suing New York's AG to stop her pressing charges over its COVID-19 response and the firing of an activist worker
Lucas Jackson/Reuters
- Amazon filed a lawsuit against New York attorney general, Letitia James on Friday.
- The lawsuit is to stop James from mounting taking legal action over its early COVID-19 response.
- Amazon drew scrutiny in March after it fired Christian Smalls, a warehouse worker, who had protested safety conditions.
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Amazon on Friday sued New York's attorney general to stop the state from taking legal action over its early COVID-19 response, including its firing of activist Christian Smalls.
The retailer drew scrutiny ten months ago when it fired Smalls shortly after he led a protest of the safety conditions inside Amazon's Staten Island warehouse. Amazon said it fired Smalls for "violating social distancing guidelines" after it asked him to stay home after coming into contact with a worker who'd tested positive for COVID-19. Smalls said his dismissal was an act of retaliation.
Senators questioned Amazon about the incident, the city announced a probe, and the state attorney general, Letitia James, said the company may have violated the law.
"It is disgraceful that Amazon would terminate an employee who bravely stood up to protect himself and his colleagues," James said in a statement after Smalls was fired in March.
In a complaint in Brooklyn federal court, Amazon accused James of overstepping bounds by legally threatening the company and demanding remedies like its surrender of profit. Federal labor and safety laws preempt those of the state, from which Amazon is seeking injunctive relief, its suit said.
Reuters was unable to immediately seek James' comment.
The atypical lawsuit shows how Amazon believes it was unfairly maligned, despite the many COVID-19 precautions it implemented, most recently COVID-19 tests and plans for vaccine administration. It also demonstrates how the company will not back down from what it considers to be injustified criticism of its workplace.
According to the lawsuit, Amazon passed with flying colors an unannounced city inspection of its Staten Island facility on March 30, the day of the protest. The warehouse's temperature checks, signage to encourage social distancing, and shift staggering showed safety complaints were "completely baseless," the lawsuit says the inspector found.
Amazon said demands by the attorney general's office (OAG) were "far more stringent than the standard adopted by the OAG when defending, in other litigation, the New York State Courts' reasonable but more limited safety response to COVID-19."
Amazon said the OAG assessed violations regardless of documentation the company provided, such as photographs of Smalls not social distancing. Smalls said he would not stop protesting until Amazon protects staff, and in November he filed a class-action suit seeking damages for Black and Hispanic workers he alleged Amazon put at risk.
In April, a leaked memo obtained by Vice showed top Amazon executives had discussed how to mount a PR campaign against Smalls. In the memo, Amazon's top lawyer said Smalls was "not smart or articulate" and the company should "make him the face of the entire union/organizing movement."
More than 19,000 or 1.44% of Amazon's US frontline employees contracted COVID-19 as of September, the company has said.
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