Amazon to Pay California $500,000 for Failing to Properly Inform Employees of Workplace COVID Cases

Amazon has agreed to pay a half-million-dollar fine and be monitored by California officials to ensure it properly notifies its workers about new coronavirus cases, the state’s attorney general announced Monday.

Amazon employs about 150,000 people in California, most of whom work at the company's 100 “fulfillment centers” — sprawling warehouses throughout the state where orders are packed and shipped. The agreement, which must be approved by a judge, requires the Seattle-based retailer to notify its workers within a day when new coronavirus cases are discovered in their workplaces.

Amazon also agreed to notify local health agencies of new virus cases within 48 hours, and to stop issuing notices that Attorney General Rob Bonta says do not adequately inform employees of their rights related to the pandemic, or of steps the company is taking to ensure worker safety.

"As the company enjoyed booming and historic sales with its stock price doubling, Amazon failed to adequately notify warehouse workers and local health agencies of COVID-19 case numbers, often leaving them unable to effectively track the spread of the virus," Bonta told reporters in San Francisco at an event held across the street from an Amazon warehouse.

"This left many workers understandably terrified and powerless to make informed decisions to protect themselves and to protect their loved ones," he added.

Amazon spokesperson Barbara Agrait said in a statement that the company was "glad to have this resolved and to see that the AG found no substantive issues with the safety measures in our buildings."

The agreement stems from actions taken last year by then-state Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who now heads the U.S. Health and Human Services Department. Becerra in December asked a judge to order Amazon to comply with subpoenas that his office issued months earlier as part of its investigation into how the company was protecting workers from the virus.

The state attorney general’s office first disclosed the investigation in a July 2020 filing in a San Francisco Superior Court case in which an employee accused the company of not doing enough to safeguard staff.

It's unclear how many Amazon employees have been exposed to the virus at work over the course of the pandemic. In October 2020, the company disclosed that nearly 20,000 of its front-line U.S. workers had tested positive or were presumed infected.

The judgment, which applies only in California, requires the company to allow the attorney general’s office to monitor its employee virus notifications for a year, and to pay the half-million-dollar settlement, which will go toward enforcement of the state’s consumer protection laws.

Bonta said the judgment is the first of its kind in the U.S., and complies with a state "right-to-know" law that took effect last year, requiring employers to notify workers of coronavirus cases at worksites, inform them of pandemic-related protections and safety plans, and report all cases to local health agencies.

Both the complaint and stipulation were filed with the Sacramento County Superior Court on Monday.

State Assembly Majority Leader Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-San Bernardino, who introduced the bill, said it was enacted after lawmakers heard stories of workers who were not told that they might have been exposed. Many California companies have since complied, she said, but some "found loopholes and they either failed or chose not to comply with the law."

The agreement comes as Amazon hires a slew of additional temporary workers in preparation for the holiday crush of package deliveries. Bonta said compliance is particularly important as the state prepares for another possible winter surge in cases as more people travel and gather indoors for the holidays.

California this year also became the first state to prohibit big retailers from firing warehouse workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks.

That law prohibits companies like Amazon from disciplining workers for following health and safety laws, and allows employees to sue their employers over unsafe quotas or undue retaliation.