Amazon Pregnancy Discrimination

Complaint to Amazon's HR Dept: Pregnancy Discrimination
Complaint to Amazon's HR Dept: Disability Discrimination Forms and Services

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Have you been a victim of pregnancy discrimination at Amazon?
Do you feel you’ve been the victim of discrimination at Amazon because of a pregnancy? If so, here’s what you need to know.
What is pregnancy discrimination?

Not that long ago, simply getting pregnant could legally get a woman fired in the US.

Since the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA), it’s no longer legal to fire a woman simply because she becomes pregnant. But even though it’s illegal, it still happens.

CNN Business reports that government agencies get more than 5,000 complaints every year from women alleging pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. The most common complaint is that women get fired once they disclose that they’re pregnant – or once they start showing.

Even companies that cater to pregnant women sometimes discriminate! As CNN reported,

A Philadelphia-based franchise of clothes retailer Motherhood Maternity paid $375,000 to settle a pregnancy discrimination and retaliation suit in 2007, after the company allegedly refused to hire three qualified female applicants because they were pregnant.

Pregnancy discrimination is sex discrimination

According to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which deals with discrimination in the workplace,

Sex discrimination involves treating someone (an applicant or employee) unfavorably because of that person’s sex, including the person’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or pregnancy.

Both federal and state laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex in relation to:

hiring
firing
pay
job assignments
promotions
layoffs
training
benefits
any other term or condition of employment

Does a pregnant woman have special workplace rights?

A normal pregnancy without special risks or complications isn’t considered a disability under federal law, so a pregnant woman isn’t legally entitled to special treatment.

However, a woman who experiences pregnancy-related complications or who has temporary physical impairments related to the pregnancy must be treated the same as any other employee with a medical or physical impairment.

As the EEOC notes,

For example, the employer may have to provide light duty, alternative assignments, disability leave, or unpaid leave to pregnant employees if it does so for other temporarily disabled employees.

Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) is a common effect of pregnancy. As healthline reports, CTS occurs in 4% of the general population but in 31% to 62% of pregnant women.

CTS can cause symptoms like:

numbness and tingling or a throbbing sensation in the fingers, wrists, and hands
swollen fingers
trouble gripping objects
problems performing fine motor skills
pain in the wrist, especially when turning it

Obviously, those symptoms could make it difficult for a woman to do her job if she needs to work with her hands.
Some pregnancy-related impairments, such as gestational diabetes or preeclampsia, may qualify as disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In that case, notes the EEOC,

An employer may have to provide a reasonable accommodation (such as leave or modifications that enable an employee to perform her job) for a disability related to pregnancy, absent undue hardship (significant difficulty or expense).

What are some examples of pregnancy discrimination?

A restaurant has a written policy to lay of female workers after the third month of their pregnancies, claiming this was for the sake of the child’s safety.
Prohibiting pregnant women from traveling on business trips
Denying a promotion to a pregnant woman, assuming she’ll quit or won’t be as focused on work as soon as she has the baby

Maternity Leave

Absurdly, the United States is one of only seven countries with no national paid maternity leave, according to the New York Times.

Maternity leave is thus left up to state laws and company policies.

Federal workers in the US get 12 weeks of paid parental leave, and nine states and the District of Columbia have paid family and medical leave laws.

Additionally,

under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) of 1993, a new parent (including foster and adoptive parents) may be eligible for 12 weeks of leave (unpaid or paid if the employee has earned or accrued it) that may be used for care of the new child. To be eligible, the employee must have worked for the employer for 12 months prior to taking the leave and the employer must have a specified number of employees. See http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs28.htm.

Pregnancy Discrimination at Amazon

According to Bloomberg,

Between 2015 and 2019, former Amazon employees filed at least seven lawsuits alleging that Amazon wrongfully terminated them during their pregnancies and failed to accommodate rudimentary requests such as more frequent bathroom breaks and fewer continuous hours on their feet.

Cnet reported about one of these cases:
In November 2015, Amber Sargent told her bosses that her doctor warned her against climbing ladders or lifting anything weighing more than 20 pounds. Amazon put her on a working freeze until they could make proper changes and told her to wait for a call, according to her lawsuit. She claims she didn’t get paid for more than a month, and every time she called, her managers told her to keep waiting.
She returned in December of that year, and found that nothing had changed — she was still in her same department and required to do everything her doctor said she couldn’t do. Another month passed before Amazon fired Sargent, her suit stated.
Pregnant woman working at Amazon face difficulties because pregnancy makes a woman need to urinate more often. As cnet reported:
Rosales said she had 30 minutes of “Time Off Tasks” for the day, which meant only three 10-minute bathroom breaks. It was a five-minute walk to and from the bathrooms in the massive warehouse where she worked, and she couldn’t transfer to a part of the warehouse that was closer, she said.
By the time she arrived at the bathroom, she would have seconds to use it before she had to rush back to her station, Rosales said. Every time she got back, her boss would confront her.
As NBC News reported, a transgender man in New Jersey sued Amazon claimed he was harassed and denied a promotion after telling his boss he was pregnant.

What can you do if you experienced pregnancy discrimination at Amazon?

If you’re dealing with pregnancy discrimination at Amazon, call attorney Cj Rosenbaum at 212-256-1109, text 212-256-8492, or email CJ@AmazonSellersLawyer.com. You can also submit a summary of your situation online .

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