The rule is for every employer to let his employees and workers know about the COVID 19 situation within the company. This is the moral as well as professional work responsibility of the company. The total number of cases and the severity of cases must be reported to the employees as well as the local health agencies. But AMAZON Inc Workspace Were Not Notified About the COVID 19 Situation.
Rob Bonta, who is the General Attorney in California, mentioned that the workers and authorities at Amazon Inc, the company, were not reported about the COVID 19 total cases within the workspace. This has cost tech giant Amazon inc, which has to pay a fine of around 500,000 dollars to settle this case.
Bonta stated to reporters that Amazon Inc has totally ignored a very sensitive responsibility and could not fulfill its duty of notifying the workers and the local health agencies about the total number of cases reported inside their warehouse and other workspaces. This type of irresponsibility costs a huge deal not just to the workers but to the government too. Breaking rules like this is the reason we have not yet overcome the Coronavirus crisis.
In California, a law was passed back in the month of September in the year 2020, under which it has been clearly stated that the COVID 19 infection cases must be reported back to the workers and other local authorities like the health agencies by the employer.
Rob Bonta’s complaint was that the Amazon notification did not mention the exact number of COVID 19 cases. The notification was only about the addition of new cases, but it was vague and did not provide clear information that would give the workers idea about the whole Covid case situation. He further said that Amazon Inc also was slow many times to inform the workers and took more than one business day to let the workers know about the COVID case situation, which put them at risk.
If workers are informed on time, they can make decisions to protect themselves from getting infected, but Amazon Inc has failed to do its job correctly. This has put many in distress.
Amazon was charged with another 500,000 dollars of fine, which will be paid to the protection laws of consumers in the State of California. Rob Bonta stated that this is the final settlement decision of this case. Hopefully, the tech giant Amazon and other companies will follow the rules from now onwards, and the safety of workers will be guaranteed.
According to the results concluded from this case, it was stated that Amazon inc has agreed to make some modifications in its system to deliver notifications regarding the COVID 19 infection cases to the workers and employees in a better and clear way.
It will be kept on a close check by the authorities to do so. The reports of cases along with this would also be sent within the forty-eight hours of infection detection to the authorities and the local health agencies. If Amazon fails to do so again, then it will be in much bigger trouble than this.
Where everyone starting from citizens to the government, is struggling to fight off COVID 19 and get back to normal life, their businesses also need to take responsibility pf their actions and play their part in getting rid of COVID 19 completely. Instead of thinking about their own benefit, they should focus more on the people’s health and risks they are putting everyone through because of their decisions.
Today is the first day that Amazon will be determined upon after its law suet. It would be interesting to see how Amazon Inc, the largest business company right now, will be able to fulfill its duty throughout its thousands of warehouses which are mostly set up in the state of California.
At first, Amazon Inc did not respond to any of the requests for an interview, but now CNBC TV reported that Amazon stated that the news has been false about the vague notifications sent to workers. There was no problem with these notifications, and every worker and authority was notified and alerted correctly about the Covid 19 cases.
The case has been resolved now, and the Amazon spokesperson was happy to tell CNBC that there was no problem found in the rules and policies of aMAZON Inc regarding COVID 19. Safety measures were given a pass by the AG, and everything has been settled with no further possibilities of issues.
The court has not yet decided to approve the settlement of the case, but it is now almost over as everything is pretty much fixed, so there will be no need to drag it any further.
Back in the month of April in the year 2020, When the Amazon workers were interviewed, they told the reporters that the COVID 19 infection cases were not being reported to the workers, and they had no idea about the possible exposures they are meeting with every day in the workspaces.
Amazon was also found lying about COVID 19 vaccinations in the mid of this year 2021. It stopped testing on employees for COVID 19 cases, and there were no rules for wearing masks inside the workplaces.
The company, however, did put up an offer of around 500,000 dollars for people who would get vaccinated. This was a good start as a lot of people were motivated to get vaccinated, and in this way, the company could provide safety to its workers.
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