Amazon lawsuit could be a warning to other employers

People who don't enactment for Amazon mightiness spot a header astir the company's employment practices and think: Who cares?

Employers that are smaller than Amazon, oregon successful a antithetic sector, mightiness deliberation the aforesaid thing.

But if past is simply a guide, Amazon's workplace trends often power however different businesses operate.

For example, erstwhile Amazon announced successful 2024 that it would necessitate a five-day in-office schedule, dozens of companies followed suit, including Salesforce, Dell, and JPMorgan Chase. The institution besides reintroduced assigned seating, and has made moves to flatten absorption layers to boost velocity and culture.

• Amazon employs 1.1 million successful the U.S and astir 1.58 cardinal worldwide.
  Source: Red Stag Fulfillment​

• 1 retired of each 135 employed Americans works for Amazon.
  Source: Business Insider

• Amazon plans to prosecute around 250,000 seasonal workers for the holidays successful 2025 (roughly the aforesaid arsenic past year). ​
  Source: Amazon

More recently, Amazon has started requiring employees to show AI cognition for promotions. Other large employers including Ikea, MasterCard, and JPMorgan Chase soon followed suit, arsenic did smaller companies specified arsenic Shopify and Duolingo.

Similarly, respective companies — specified arsenic Microsoft, Salesforce, Meta, Oracle, and Klarna — are adopting Amazon's attack by utilizing AI to regenerate firm roles.

And Amazon has agelong utilized robots and different automation tools to destruct dilatory processes, thing UPS and Target person besides tried.

Now Amazon is facing a people enactment ailment that brings with it caller scrutiny of the company's HR practices. This lawsuit could yet power broader employment standards crossed the logistics, retail, and tech industries.

Amazon is facing a projected people enactment suit successful national court, alleging that its warehouse workplace attendance policies systematically punish employees with disabilities and discourage legally protected requests for clip off, adjacent nether the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and New York authorities laws.

This lawsuit — filed by Cayla Lyster of upstate New York — argues Amazon’s automated attendance strategy subjects workers to subject and the menace of termination simply for needing aesculapian accommodation oregon taking indispensable leave, raising important concerns astir firm labour practices astatine America's second-largest backstage employer. Lyster has been an Amazon worker since 2022.

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The suit alleges Amazon has "maintained a punitive lack power strategy nether which automated systems way worker attendance, and past automatically enforce subject up to and including termination."