October 22, 2025
Complaint Alleges Amazon Discriminated Against Pregnant Employees and Employees with Disabilities in Warehouses Across New Jersey
TRENTON – Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin and the Division on Civil Rights (DCR) today announced that they filed a complaint in New Jersey Superior Court alleging that Amazon, the state’s largest private employer, has systematically violated the civil rights of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities in its warehouses across the state, discriminating against them and denying them reasonable accommodations in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD).
The complaint filed today alleges that Amazon has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination that has violated the rights and compromised the well-being of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities who are employed in its New Jersey warehouses. The complaint follows a years-long investigation by DCR into Amazon’s treatment of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities at dozens of warehouses across New Jersey.
The LAD prohibits employers from discriminating or retaliating against pregnant workers and workers with disabilities. It requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations so long as doing so does not create an undue hardship for the business. And it requires employers to engage an interactive process with employees to determine what accommodations are possible.
The complaint asserts, however, that Amazon has repeatedly violated the LAD’s protections by, among other things, unlawfully placing pregnant workers and workers with disabilities on unpaid leave when they request accommodations; unlawfully retaliating against these workers, including by firing them, when they seek accommodations; unlawfully denying reasonable accommodations to these workers; unreasonably delaying its response to accommodation requests by workers; and terminating pregnant workers and workers with disabilities who receive accommodations for failing to meet the company’s rigid productivity requirements.
“Put simply, Amazon has exploited pregnant workers and workers with disabilities in its New Jersey warehouses. In building a trillion-dollar business, Amazon has flagrantly violated their rights and ignored their well-being – all while it continues to profit off their labor,” said Attorney General Platkin. “There is no excuse for Amazon’s shameful treatment of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities. Amazon’s egregious conduct has caused enormous damage to pregnant workers and workers with disabilities in our state, and it must stop now.”
Amazon currently employs approximately 50,000 workers in its dozens of warehouses across the State. Amazon’s internal records show that Amazon receives thousands of requests for accommodations from workers with disabilities and pregnant workers in its warehouses every year. For example, over a recent two-year period, warehouse employees in New Jersey alone made over 27,000 requests for disability- and pregnancy-related accommodations – more than one request per hour of every day.
Yet as the complaint filed today alleges, DCR’s investigation found that Amazon’s responses to these accommodation requests reflect a consistent disregard for the civil rights of pregnant workers and workers with disabilities in its warehouses. DCR’s investigation revealed that Amazon has engaged in discriminatory practices that have had the effect of pushing pregnant workers and workers with disabilities out of its workforce.
The complaint alleges that Amazon has automatically placed pregnant employees and employees with disabilities on unpaid leave while their accommodation requests were pending and has kept them on unpaid leave after it has denied their accommodation requests. As a result, employees who request accommodations are often forced to go without pay while the company processes their request.
For example, one pregnant Amazon employee requested the use of a wheelchair as an accommodation and was automatically placed on unpaid leave while her accommodation was pending. Another employee whose requested disability accommodation was denied was told by Amazon that she was being “automatically placed under [a] leave of absence” because her worksite was “unable to accommodate your restrictions.”
The complaint also asserts that, on numerous occasions, Amazon unlawfully retaliated against workers who requested accommodations by terminating their employment just days or weeks after employees submitted requests for accommodations. One worker notified Amazon that they had “trouble lifting heavy things” or “reaching for things [on] the highest shelf” because of a disability. Instead of working with the employee to find a suitable accommodation, Amazon terminated the employee just weeks later.
In addition, Amazon often unjustifiably denies accommodation requests from pregnant workers and workers with disabilities without considering whether there are alternative accommodations or worksites that could accommodate the request. Amazon does so even though workers with disabilities are entitled to reasonable accommodations, including job restructuring, part-time or modified work schedules, leaves of absence, or job reassignment, and even though the LAD (as amended by the New Jersey Pregnant Workers Fairness Act) explicitly identifies “job restructuring or modified work schedules, and temporary transfers to less strenuous or hazardous work” as reasonable accommodations for pregnant workers.
Moreover, as the complaint alleges, Amazon also fails to engage with workers in the legally required interactive process because it closes accommodation requests when workers cannot meet a rigid and unduly short seven-day deadline Amazon sets for providing medical documentation. In one instance, when a pregnant worker requested an accommodation to not lift heavy items because the worker was “at a high risk of having a miscarriage,” Amazon closed the request and ultimately refused to provide an accommodation because the employee did not submit paperwork within seven days – even though the LAD does not permit an employer to require paperwork at all under those circumstances. Moreover, even when workers do provide that documentation, Amazon often unreasonably denies responding to their accommodation requests, leaving some employees in the dark for weeks on end.
A review of Amazon’s records also showed that when Amazon does approve an accommodation request, it applies its standard productivity metrics inflexibly, resulting in pregnant workers and workers with disabilities being disciplined and sometimes terminated disproportionately by Amazon. For instance, as alleged in the complaint, less than a month after Amazon approved one pregnant employee for extra breaks and restricted her from lifting items heavier than 15 pounds, she was terminated for not meeting packing numbers – metrics she could not meet because of her approved accommodation.
“New Jersey’s civil rights laws exist to shield people living and working in our state from discrimination, and the Law Against Discrimination offers strong worker protections that extend beyond what is granted under federal law,” said DCR Director Yolanda N. Melville. “But Amazon has engaged in practices that had dire financial and health consequences for pregnant and disabled workers in New Jersey. Today’s complaint underscores our commitment to protecting people working in our state.”
The 10-count complaint issued today alleges that Amazon violated the LAD by denying reasonable accommodations to pregnant workers and workers with disabilities; failing to engage in the interactive process with these workers; engaging in disparate treatment of these workers based on their protected characteristics; maintaining policies or practices that have an unlawful disparate impact on these workers based on a protected characteristic; and engaging in unlawful retaliation against pregnant workers and workers with disabilities.
The State seeks, among other things, an injunction to stop Amazon from discriminating against pregnant workers and workers with disabilities, as well as civil monetary penalties and punitive damages against Amazon. The State also seeks compensatory damages to all aggrieved persons, including all unnamed victims, for lost wages and benefits, humiliation, emotional distress and mental pain and anguish caused by Amazon’s unlawful conduct.
The State’s complaint in this case against Amazon also follows on the heels of a complaint filed earlier this week by Attorney General Platkin and the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development against Amazon and its Amazon Logistics delivery network, alleging that Amazon misclassified Flex delivery drivers as independent contractors and unlawfully deprived them of rightful wages, benefits, and a host of other legal rights and protections afforded to employees.
Media Inquiries: Tara Oliver – OAGpress@njoag.gov
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DCR is represented in this matter by Division of Law Civil Rights Assistant Section Chief Farng-Yi Foo and Deputy Attorney General Maryanne Abdelmesih under the supervision of Counsel to the Director of the Division of Law Christina Brandt-Young and Deputy Director Sara M. Gregory of the Division of Law’s Affirmative Civil Enforcement Practice Group. DCR’s investigation was conducted by Deputy Associate Director Danielle Thorne, Legal Specialist Katrina Tattoli, and Investigator Jason Arce, under the direction of Associate Director Malcolm Peyton-Cook.
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The New Jersey Division on Civil Rights (DCR) is the state agency responsible for preventing and eliminating discrimination and bias-based harassment in employment, housing, and places of public accommodation (e.g., places open to the public like courts, schools, businesses, hospitals). DCR enforces the LAD, the New Jersey Family Leave Act, and the Fair Chance in Housing Act.
DCR recently issued Guidance on Workplace Accommodations for Pregnant, Postpartum, Breastfeeding, and Lactating Employees and a suite of other resources related to reproductive rights in New Jersey and employment discrimination.