The dystopian version of AI has arrived at Amazon corporate job sites. Disabled workers in corporate settings
are alleging that the company is using AI processes as a way to discriminate against them, violating federal law under the U.S. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Sign the petition to demand an investigation into Amazon's discriminatory - and deeply illegal - labor practices!Workers with disabilities are speaking out, sharing their experiences of being shut down, silenced, and marginalized - all for being disabled.
For example, the company has been pushing strict "return-to-office" policies, after a period of increased work-from-home flexibility following COVID. But for disabled workers, some are unable to return to the office, for a wide variety of reasons.
Apparently, even when they have medical recommendations or serious accessibility concerns, Amazon's AI programs are
automatically denying their requests for reasonable accommodations. That leaves them with
limited options - and sometimes facing unemployment.
On top of that, Amazon has allegedly been
suppressing any amount of dissent or discussion about this problem among its employees. Some workers had begun discussing the importance of organizing or unionizing in order to safeguard their federally-protected ADA rights. But Amazon apparently swooped in and interrupted those messages.
Sometimes it fired the people involved in these discussions, and sometimes it deleted their messages outright on Slack groups.
This is in clear violation of the law, and not just under the ADA, but under labor laws as well. In particular, the National Labor Relations Act ensures workers have the right to organize together.
According to an internal employee poll, approximately
93% of disabled respondents said the company's current policies had been personally damaging to them. 92% said there was no accessible process to secure necessary job accommodations. And 72% said the majority (more than half) of their requests for workplace accommodations had been denied or under-served. The situation is so bad that
more than 200 disabled employees signed onto a letter urging Amazon executives to bring the company back in line with disability laws and labor laws.
U.S. agencies must investigate and punish Amazon for violating federal laws regarding labor rights and disability rights! Sign the petition!