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Amazon's Return-to-Office Mandate Sparks Complaints from Disabled Employees (yahoo.com) 78

Posted by EditorDavid from the boxes-with-smiles dept.
An anonymous reader shared this report from Bloomberg: Amazon's hard-line stance on getting disabled employees to return to the office has sparked a backlash, with workers alleging the company is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act as well as their rights to collectively bargain. At least two Amazon employees have filed complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the National Labor Relations Board, federal agencies that regulate working conditions. One of the workers said they provided the EEOC with a list of 18 "similarly situated" employees to emphasize that their experience isn't isolated and to help federal regulators with a possible investigation.

Disabled workers frustrated with how Amazon is handling their requests for accommodations — including exemptions to a mandate that they report to the office five days a week — are also venting their displeasure on internal chat rooms and have encouraged colleagues to answer surveys about the policies. Amazon has been deleting such posts and warning that they violate rules governing internal communications. One employee said they were terminated and another said they were told to find a different position after advocating for disabled workers on employee message boards. Both filed complaints with the EEOC and NLRB.
Amazon has told employees with disabilities they must now submit to a "multilevel leader review," Bloomberg reported in October, "and could be required to return to the office for monthlong trials to determine if accommodations meet their needs." (They received calls from "accommodation consultants" who also reviewed medical documentation, after which "another Amazon manager must sign off. If they don't, the request goes to a third manager...")

Bloomberg's new article remembers how several employees told them in November. "that they believed the system was designed to deny work-from-home accommodations and prompt employees with disabilities to quit, which some have done. Amazon denied the system was designed to encourage people to resign." Since then, workers have mobilized against the policy. One employee repeatedly posted an online survey seeking colleagues' reactions, defying the company's demands to stop. The survey ultimately generated feedback from more than 200 workers even though Amazon kept deleting it, and the results reflected strong opposition to Amazon's treatment of disabled workers. More than 71% of disabled Amazon employees surveyed said the company had denied or failed to meet most of their accommodation requests, while half indicated they faced "hostile" work environments after disclosing their disabilities and requesting accommodations.

One respondent said they sought permission to work from home after suffering multiple strokes that prevented them from driving. Amazon suggested moving closer to the office and taking mass transit, the person said in the survey. Another respondent said they couldn't drive for longer than 15-minute intervals due to chronic pain. Amazon's recommendation was to pull over and stretch during their commute, which the employee said was unsafe since they drive on a busy freeway... Amazon didn't dispute the accounts and said it considered a range of solutions to disability accommodations, including changes to an employee's commute.
Amazon is also "using AI to parse accommodation requests, read doctors' notes and make recommendations based on keywords," according to the article — another policy that's also generated internal opposition (and formed a "key element" of the complaint to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission).

"The dispute could affect thousands of Amazon workers. An internal Slack channel for employees with disabilities has 13,000 members, one of the people said..."

Amazon's Return-to-Office Mandate Sparks Complaints from Disabled Employees More | Reply

Amazon's Return-to-Office Mandate Sparks Complaints from Disabled Employees

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    • It's an interesting argument, and I wish them luck . But If Amazon's offices are all wheelchair accessible, I don't think disabled employees have a good chance in getting a return to the office exemption.

      • Re: Disabled people didn't exist before 2020 (Score:5, Interesting)

        by tttesty ( 8774457 ) on Sunday June 15, 2025 @09:48PM (#65451811)
        What if the disability doesn't involve the use of a wheelchair? Vision impairment, Learning disabilities, Physical disability, Autism, Traumatic brain injury, Hearing Impairments, ADHD, Intellectual disability, Epilepsy?
        • Back in the 90s I worked at a JC Penney catalog call center. There was a woman who was in a motorized wheelchair who was blind. They equipped her with a screen reader and she was a great employee. I think if this lady could manage to get to work then most folks whining can probably do so as well. I like working from home as much as the next guy, but this isn't the correct way to do it.

          • You can't compare all disabilities with her. Not everyone has a huge support network. Often visible disabilities get good Samaritan support, often immediately whilst chronic pain etc gets close to zero support.

      • If they were able to work in the office prior then they have no excuses.

    • That doesn't matter. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Sunday June 15, 2025 @09:54PM (#65451823) Homepage Journal

      We all know that working from the office was once the norm. That fact by itself tells us nothing about how much the workers liked it. Nor is it relevant to the modern day which includes excellent technological solutions for remote work and widespread evidence that it does not harm productivity.

      So, the suffering that some people face, today, in dealing with a work-from-office mandate are not in any way addressed by saying "well people used to have to work from the office regardless." We don't live in the past, and the tribulations of the past aren't relevant to the present.

      Of course, I don't expect Amazon to show any compassion. Why would they? They succeed, in part, by exploiting workers, so they don't care if there is some suffering involved. They believe (right or wrong doesn't matter) that their bottom line benefits from this policy, so they will push it. Workers who don't like it can push back if they choose, risks and all.

      Personally, I approve of worker pushback and wish we had more of it, because power is not in balance and being a worker sucks in general.

      • Well, Amazon apparently doesn't care according to these legal cases filed with the EEOC and NLRB. HR will just retaliate against the employees that complained in order to save the company. The policies will stay until the next management shakeup. Even if Amazon gets fined $10M, that's chump change. They can raise the price of Prime to offset whatever lawsuits, and have consumers pay instead.

        • 10M at Amazon scale for a few hundred people is nothing. The whole matter is a giant threat to all the others to show what happens if you don't do as asked.

          Back to office orno job for you.

        • I guess you are an Amazon employee that has to pee in a plastic bottle cuz your boss won't let you disappear for the afternoon in the rest room ... or wherever you vape the stuff that makes you a whiny lazy useless POS.

      • We all know that working from the office was once the norm. That fact by itself tells us nothing about how much the workers liked it. Nor is it relevant to the modern day which includes excellent technological solutions for remote work and widespread evidence that it does not harm productivity.

        There is a difference between a liked or preferred solution and an alternative workable solution. The ADA doesn't necessarily allow a preferred choice among workable solutions, just that accommodations be made.

        This separate issue concerning whether current technology facilitates additional solutions is a worthwhile discussion but is still different from the legal question surrounding the ADA.

    • Re:Disabled people didn't exist before 2020 (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 15, 2025 @11:13PM (#65451925)
      I saw a lot of posts in 2020 on from disabled people saying something along the lines of "COVID proved disability accommodations were always possible, just no one cared.". These people don't freshly need these accommodations; they just have recent proof that Amazon's claims they can't be provided are bullshit.

    • Re:Disabled people didn't exist before 2020 (Score:4, Insightful)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday June 16, 2025 @04:47AM (#65452341) Homepage Journal

      They may have joined after 2020. It's been more than 5 years since the pandemic started. They may also have become disabled since then. People get injured, conditions worsen.

  • The EEOC and NLRB were impotent prior to Jan. 2025 and are even worse now (the NLRB can't even rule because they lack a quorum).

    Amazon is following the letter of the law, which means they can grind this down until people quit. Accommodation is suppose to be a "good faith" effort between employer and employee. It seems neither is approaching this in that spirit.

  • Reports depicting the grueling work conditions in Amazon warehouses, especially during seasonal sales, have continually dogged Amazon. Workers report long hours, timed bathroom breaks, surveillance of work productivity/speed, intense isolation from others, physically demanding quotas, and other difficult conditions to work under. These working conditions take a physical and mental toll on the workers, who are often treated more as a data set or a robot than as humans. Amazon’s troubling labor abuses

    • Reports depicting the grueling work conditions in Amazon warehouses, especially during seasonal sales, have continually dogged Amazon. Workers report long hours, timed bathroom breaks, surveillance of work productivity/speed, intense isolation from others, physically demanding quotas, and other difficult conditions to work under. These working conditions take a physical and mental toll on the workers, who are often treated more as a data set or a robot than as humans. Amazon’s troubling labor abuses

    • Reports depicting the grueling work conditions in Amazon warehouses=

      None of those issues are part of this particular complaint (they may be part of a different complaint in some other jurisdictional forum). In practice, while "reasonable accommodation" is required, most warehouse jobs are not going to be viable for those with certain disabilities, and no industry are likely required to make such accommodations (just like airlines are not required to hire pilots who cannot see).

      • 'ttesty' likes to hear/see themself whine on /. Talk about somebody with a "personal vanity" issue. Like a person that posts a Google comment on a Google Map pin for a hospital asking for a medical diagnosis of their "condition" or where the nearest cheep hotel is located relative to the hospital.

    • People are free to look for another job.

      In fact, when my wife's employer said they would soon be calling people back to the office, she went out and got another job, with a 40% pay increase too. So, I know it's possible.

  • I quite liked the days when, generally speaking, guidelines outnumbered rules, and the whole employee-company relationship was less brittle.

    I understand that clear rules with clear consequences avoid misunderstandings. But this is more necessary with children than it is between gentlemen, as it were. What's changed...?

    • Victim culture combined with main-character syndrome. People who were never told "no" as a child were suddenly faced with it as an adult and didn't have the tools to handle it. They're unable to learn from "This is How the World Works" conversations without "feeling unsafe", so the culture has to shift downward to a grade-school rulebook.

    • But this is more necessary with children than it is between gentlemen, as it were. What's changed...?

      Amazon is largely populated by employees who got there as their first job out of college and don't know any better. So more children than gentlemen.

  • Is a career hellscape for anyone. Most of the people I've talked to who work there say, oh I'm just writing here until I achieve X and then move on. As far as I know you are part of a big corporate machine that cares nothing for individuals.

  • They want you to quit (Score:3)

    by khchung ( 462899 ) on Monday June 16, 2025 @05:35AM (#65452411) Journal

    Isn't it obvious enough yet?

  • If you can't handle returning to office and a company is pushing, you still have to work with terms of employment or else.
    • Clients that require me to come to their office regularly is pretty down on my list.
      I just don't see the point of commuting through rush-hour.
      To sit behind a pc in another office, with a worse setup then I have myself.

  • I thought the assumed deal with faang companies is long hours in exchange for great pay and benefits. Am I wrong about that?

    Amazon is famous for treating it's employees like shit. As soon as a recruiter mentions them, I'm not interested. Why do people return their calls?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      The pay is fantastic, and as most of the Amazon employees working in an office are AWS employees working in "Sales", it's great for people who can babble and bullshit but with no real skills - particularly as their sales people don't work on quota and can do a very large number of things that contribute to looking busy but accomplish nothing. Even skilled people struggle to get anything done there due to their "gotta follow the rules" formulaic "success criteria" culture. This is partially why you end up wi

  • To all the people posting about all the things they have had to deal with to make it work in the corporate system and still, "made it into the office"; disability, family hardship, kids, health issues, etc, I'm genuinely glad you made it through. You are missing the point that you shouldn't have had to. There is no reason or benefit for corporations being this shitty. Your experiences are not proof that others are weak, its proof that we live in a system of "human capital" and we should be trying to cha

  • Let's not conflate things here.

    It's trivial to click the "I've got a disability" box when applying for a job, and it doesn't necessarily mean you're disabled or have a disability, except per the definition of law.

    Eg. things like alcoholism, prior or current, ADHD/autism, prior cancer, anxiety disorders, and/or being morbidly obese.

    Also covered under the ADA, would be something like ripping a tendon or breaking a knee in a sporting activity and needing to (temporarily, albeit for more than several weeks) wal

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