Amazon Harassment and Discrimination Lawsuit Investigation

Bloomberg News quotes a partner at Wigdor LLP, the firm representing the five women listed in the lawsuits:  

These five people really represent a cross-section of employees…we definitely saw a pattern in stories that we were being told.  

One of the women, a shift manager at a Pennsylvania facility, was demoted by her shift manager after rejecting his sexual advances. Another person listed in one of the lawsuits, a black woman who joined Amazon’s human resources group in 2019, was allegedly treated as “a second-class citizen by the majority of her supervisors, all white”, and was passed over for promotions “in favor of younger, less qualified white men.” In another case, a Latina woman and former manager at an Amazon warehouse in Everett, Washington, said that she was fired after reporting to human resources that a manager was subjecting her to racist remarks. 

Bloomberg News further states that while a spokesperson declared that the company had “investigat[ed] each of the incidents detailed in the lawsuit and…found no evidence to support the allegations,” Amazon has been well known for an aggressive workplace, and has faced pressure to improve conditions for workers. According to Market Watch, Amazon shareholders proposed a civil rights and equity audit to assess Amazon’s performance on civil rights, equity, diversity, and inclusion. Though the resolution ultimately did not pass, the investor group supporting the resolution explained that it failed only because Jeff Bezos held 14% of the company’s voting shares.