A bunch of Democratic lawmakers led by Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) need regulators to take a better take a look at Amazon’s points-based attendance coverage, which they consider could also be punishing staff for taking legally protected day without work. First reported by Vice, the letter to the Department of Labor and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission focuses on Amazon’s “no-fault” strategy to absences, which provides factors each time an worker misses work with out giving advance discover, whatever the purpose. If staff attain a sure variety of factors, they’re mechanically reviewed for termination.
Under the corporate’s attendance coverage, an worker whose baby has out of the blue fallen unwell or who suffers a medical emergency would nonetheless be penalized. Employees who don’t report absences no less than 16 hours earlier than the beginning of shift obtain two factors on their document. If they offer discover lower than two hours earlier than a shift, they obtain two factors and an “absence submission infraction”. If staff obtain three absence submission infractions and eight attendance factors, Amazon will contemplate firing them.
Lawmakers consider that Amazon’s attendance coverage might violate present legal guidelines that permit staff to take sick, household, medical and being pregnant depart with out advance discover. For instance, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ensures eligible staff unpaid depart for quite a lot of circumstances, together with being pregnant or the necessity to deal with a sick member of the family.
“We field numerous calls from Amazon employees; while many workers know about Amazon’s punitive attendance policies, they describe never receiving information about the federal, state, and local laws that entitle them to legally protected time off—much less understanding how such laws apply in practice in their own lives,” famous labor rights group Better Balance in a letter to Congress.
Other corporations with “no-fault” attendance insurance policies have run into authorized troubles up to now. Back in 2011, Verizon was ordered to pay $20 million after the EEOC discovered that the corporate’s no-fault attendance coverage made no exceptions for disabled staff.
Many warehouse staff have complained that Amazon uncared for to tell them of their rights beneath FMLA or incapacity legal guidelines. The firm has had a poor observe document with the way it treats staff at its many warehouses and success facilities. Plenty of warehouses, in response to poor working circumstances on the e-commerce large, are presently pushing to unionize.