A New York federal judge has ordered online retailer Amazon to comply with a subpoena from a U.S. civil rights agency investigating claims that the company discriminated against pregnant warehouse workers.
U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield in Manhattan late Thursday rejected Amazon’s arguments that the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s (EEOC) subpoena was overly broad and sought irrelevant information.
The EEOC is seeking data on requests by pregnant workers at five U.S. warehouses for accommodations, such as limits on heavy lifting or additional breaks, and whether Amazon granted or denied those requests.
“Amazon has cooperated with the investigation since it began three years ago and disagrees with the EEOC’s assessment of its conduct. Amazon is proud to offer benefits and time off to pregnant employees and employees whose partners give birth,” he said.
“We take this matter very seriously and look forward to showing that the EEOC’s concerns are unfounded,” Stevenson said in a statement.
The committee’s investigation came after complaints from five women who said they suffered pregnancy discrimination while working at Amazon warehouses in New Jersey, Connecticut, North Carolina and California.
Amazon said it provided about 370,000 pages of data to the EEOC in response to the subpoena, but not in the specific format the agency requested.
In her ruling, Judge Schofield said the information sought in the subpoena is necessary for the EEOC to determine whether Amazon engaged in unlawful discrimination. She gave Amazon until August 9 to respond to the subpoena.
An EEOC spokesman declined to comment.
In 2022, a New York state agency filed an administrative complaint alleging that Amazon forced pregnant and disabled warehouse workers to take unpaid leave instead of providing accommodations even when they were able to work. The case is pending.
Amazon has denied any wrongdoing and said it tries to support workers, but in a statement responding to the New York complaint it acknowledged that it “has not always taken the right approach.”
The EEOC issued a subpoena last year seeking five categories of information, including data about the accommodations Amazon provided to warehouse workers with disabilities. At the time, federal law only required companies to provide the same accommodations to pregnant workers that they provided to employees with disabilities.
A law passed late last year requires employers to accommodate a pregnant worker, regardless of how they treat workers with disabilities.
