Former Amazon employees sue over alleged discrimination against pregnant warehouse workers
A group of former Amazon warehouse employees is suing the company for systemically discriminating against pregnant workers
A group of former Amazon warehouse employees is suing the company for systemically discriminating against pregnant workers, accusing the company of denying them basic accommodations and penalizing some who took breaks to pump milk or time off for hospital visits.
The four plaintiffs filed a proposed nationwide class action in a Brooklyn, New York federal court Tuesday, accusing Amazon of violating the 2022 Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, which requires employers with 15 or more workers to provide a “reasonable accommodation” for pregnancy and childbirth related medical conditions. To refuse an accommodation, companies must show it would create “undue hardship” for the business.
“Denying a pregnant worker a stool, a lighter workload, or a bathroom break is a violation of federal law — it’s that simple," said Inimai Chettiar, president of A Better Balance, a nonprofit organization that is representing the plaintiffs along with the law firm Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel. "Amazon has built an empire on speed and efficiency — speed and efficiency that too often sacrifices the rights of pregnant workers it refuses to accommodate.”
Amazon denied the accusations, saying the lawsuit’s description of events is inaccurate.
“Ensuring the health and well-being of our employees is one of our greatest responsibilities, and we strive to provide a safe and supportive environment for everyone, which includes supporting tens of thousands of employees with pregnancy accommodations each year," said Kelly Nantel, an Amazon spokesperson.
Nantel said Amazon has approved “more than 99.9% of pregnancy related accommodations” over the past year and that “the accounts shared by A Better Balance contain inaccuracies and omit important details.”
A Better Balance spearheaded a decade-long campaign for the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, drawing attention to the plight of thousands of women, especially low-wage workers, who have been pushed out of work for requesting accommodations such as a chair or stool, leave to attend prenatal appointments, light duty for manual labor, or temporary reassignment.
The law passed with overwhelming bipartisan support and took effect in June 2023 but has since been embroiled in several lawsuits filed by Republican-led states and religious groups, which objected to regulations passed by the Biden-era Equal Employment Opportunity Commission establishing that workers seeking abortions are entitled to accommodations.
A federal judge last year struck down the abortion provision of the regulations, which the EEOC, now led by a Republican majority, plans to revise. A separate lawsuit filed by the state of Texas takes aim at the entirety of the law, claiming its passage was unconstitutional because a majority of House members were not physically present to approve the law as part of a spending package in December 2022.
Despite those disputes, the EEOC has been regularly enforcing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, pursuing companies who deny pregnant workers accommodations.
The new lawsuit against Amazon claims the company's “discriminatory and retaliatory policies” against pregnant workers have already been well-documented in state investigations in New Jersey and New York and EEOC findings.
One of the plaintiffs, Jennifer Hatch, worked in a role processing customer returns in Lancaster, New York, which involved standing for several hours at a time and lifting boxes of various weights to sort their contents. After she found out she was pregnant in January 2025, her doctor determined her pregnancy to be high-risk due to her age, and recommended she sit down at regular intervals.
But when she requested a 30-pound lifting restriction, a sitting break for 15 minutes every four hours, and a maximum of eight hours per shift, Amazon delayed and then denied the requests, according to the lawsuit.
Then, in early March 2025, a manager refused to let Hatch sit in an available chair since her accommodation was not approved, although she was struggling to breathe, the complaint says. And when she clocked out of work early multiple times to go to the hospital for pregnancy-related abdominal pain, exacerbated by standing for long periods at work, Amazon docked her unpaid time off balance and later fired her for violating an attendance policy.
“Lower wage, shift, and hourly women workers are foundational to this country’s economy — yet they’re being treated as disposable. And practices that deny pregnant workers simple accommodations that pose no threat to productivity are not just unfair, they’re illegal,” Chettiar told AP in an emailed statement.
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The Associated Press’ women in the workforce coverage receives financial support from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
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