Fired Amazon worker sues over pandemic working conditions

Fired Amazon worker Christian Smalls filed a class-action lawsuit against the e-commerce giant on Thursday, alleging that Amazon violated federal civil rights law by terminating his employment and by allegedly putting thousands of other minority Amazon workers at risk during the pandemic.

The suit, filed in US district court in the Eastern District of New York, calls for compensation for Smalls and more protective measures for Amazon workers who continue to handle packages in the company’s facilities amid a worsening health crisis.

Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The suit marks a high-profile attack against Amazon for its health and safety practices in the early months of the pandemic, when a surge in consumer demand for e-commerce put additional strain on the company’s logistics network. Amazon has said it has provided more hand sanitizer, implemented temperature checks and required social distancing at its facilities. But even as the policies were rolling out, workers themselves were saying it was not enough.

Smalls was fired by Amazon earlier this year after organizing a protest outside his workplace, the JFK8 fulfillment center in Staten Island, to highlight what Smalls said were unsafe working conditions at the start of the pandemic.

At the time, Amazon spokesperson Kristen Kish said that Smalls “was found to have had close contact with a diagnosed associate with a confirmed case of COVID-19 and was asked to remain home with pay for 14 days… Despite that instruction to stay home with pay, he came onsite [on], March 30, putting the teams at risk.”

Thursday’s suit alleges that Amazon ignored Smalls’ pleas and paid greater attention to the health and safety of the plant’s white managers over that of black and brown line workers.

“We would suggest that the cavalier attitude that Amazon took was because they were black and brown people who were primarily impacted at this facility,” said CK Hoffler, one of the attorneys representing Smalls in the litigation. Hoffler is also the president of the National Bar Association and chair of the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which is backing the litigation (but is not named as a plaintiff in the suit).

In a press conference Thursday, Smalls told reporters that Amazon’s “white managers were being quarantined, one by one,” but line workers were being told the managers were simply going on vacation. At the time, Smalls said, Amazon had not implemented any of the safety measures it currently practices. Only after Smalls was fired did those policies begin, he said.