Amazon to pay $500,000 fine for failing to notify workers of Covid cases

Xavier Becerra, the former California attorney general who now heads the US Health and Human Services Department, last December asked a judge to order Amazon to comply with subpoenas his office issued nearly four months earlier as part of its investigation into how the company was protecting workers from the coronavirus at its facilities.

It is not known how many Amazon employees have been exposed to the virus at work during the course of the pandemic. In October 2020, the company disclosed that nearly 20,000 of its frontline US workers had tested positive or were presumed infected.

The agreement came as Amazon gears up for the holiday crush of package deliveries. Bonta said compliance is particularly important as the state prepares for another possible winter surge in cases as people gather indoors for the holidays.

California this year also became the first state to prohibit big retailers from firing warehouse workers for missing quotas that interfere with bathroom and rest breaks.

That law prohibits Amazon and similar companies from disciplining workers for following health and safety laws, and allows employees to sue to suspend unsafe quotas or reverse retaliation.