Amazon faces lawsuits for discriminating agains pregnant women: Report

There are almost seven lawsuits filed against Amazon from pregnant women in the past eight years. These pregnant workers had accused the company of refusing to accommodate their needs during their pregnancy period. The new has been reported by Alfred Ng and Ben Fox Rubin investigative reporters from CNET.

According to the report, these women workers used to work at Amazon's warehouse. The company has a wide network of warehouses. Amazon has faced a lot of criticism for extremely tiring and demanding work from warehouse workers.

Amazon warehouses work on software which keeps tracks of every moment inside the factory. Even a small break is also calculated by the software. If a worker fails to pack a box or perform his or her task in five minutes, the software sends a supervisor to check what's wrong with the workflow. In this situation, it's very difficult for a pregnant woman to work.

"Amazon wants to push out as much product as possible," Rosales told CNET, who filed her suit in January and is due in June. "They need as many people that don't need accommodations to work there. They care more about the numbers than their employees."

"It is absolutely not true that Amazon would fire an employee for being pregnant; we are an equal opportunity employer," the report quoted an Amazon spokeswoman as saying. "We work with our employees to accommodate their medical needs including pregnancy-related needs. We also support new parents by offering various maternity and parental leave benefits."

Back in November 2015, when Amber Sargent informed her manager that she is pregnant and the doctor suggests her not to climb ladders and lift anything above 20 pounds. The company puts her on hold and told her to wait for a call. In her lawsuit, she claimed that she was unpaid for more than a month and neither she received any call from the company. When she tried contacting the manager, she told her to wait for the call.

In another case, Trudy Martinez who was working at Amazon fulfilment centre in Florence was told by her doctor that there are some complications with the baby's heartbeat tracking. She was suggested to take leave for three days.

After those three days, the Amazon human resources manager fired her saying that the company, "does not accept doctor's notes". Martinez also filed a lawsuit against the company.

Opinion

Being a multinational company Amazon must pay respect to their employees and give more attention to the pregnant workers with proper healthcare facilities. Instead of this the company is increasing its workload and making the situation more worst for them.

The report also claimed that an undercover author and whistleblower found a worker in the UK carrying a toilet bottle to avoid the bathroom break penalties.

This is really gross and inhuman, there is something which is not controlled by humans and that's why it is called natures call. In my view, Amazon must have to apologise to all these women who faced a bad time in the company during their pregnancy period.