The China Show 6/13/2025
'Bloomberg: The China Show' is your definitive source for news and analysis on the world's second-biggest economy. From politics and policy to tech and trends, David Ingles and Avril Hong give global investors unique insight, delivering in-depth discussions with the newsmakers who matter. (Source: Bloomberg)
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Company spokesperson Zoe Hoffmann said Amazon's Disability and Leave Services team ensures employees have access to the accommodations and adjustments they need to be effective and advance their careers. The process is empathetic, and the interactions aren't automated, she said. 'Amazon respects employees' rights to organize and doesn't interfere with these rights. We don't discriminate or retaliate against employees for engaging in organizing activities,' Hoffmann said in an emailed statement. 'We're committed to supporting our employees by providing effective accommodations that meet their individual needs and the needs of the business.' Bloomberg reported in November that Amazon was making it more difficult for staff with disabilities to win approval to work from home. The company implemented a more rigorous vetting process, both for new requests to work remotely and applications to extend existing arrangements. 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But in the event of a legal challenge, she said, Amazon would have to prove that providing an accommodation to an employee placed an unreasonable burden on the company. 'I would not leave that final judgment to AI,' Feldblum said. Amazon's partly automated accommodation and internal job transfer processes are key elements of the employee complaints to the EEOC, with workers arguing that it is insufficiently interactive to provide a complete picture of a person's physical limitations and whether reasonable accommodations could help them do their jobs. 'If there's an indication that Amazon is using some rote artificial intelligence process to manage these requests, that's not interactive,' said David Hutt, legal director of the National Disability Rights Network. 'Courts are pretty skeptical of these kind of boilerplate accommodations that aren't specifically tailored around the person's disability and their job function.' Two employees said Amazon cited its 'solicitation' policy when deleting their posts from employee communication channels. The policy prohibits personnel from asking others for financial contributions, disseminating advertising materials or gathering signatures on petitions unless they have permission from the company, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Preventing employees from discussing the workplace could backfire if the NLRB determines that doing so interferes with their protected rights to organize and debate working conditions, said Kate Bronfenbrenner, the director of labor education research at Cornell University. 'If two or more people are in any way penalized or coerced against exercising their rights, it's a violation,' Bronfenbrenner said. 'Whether this gets enforced is another question,' she added, citing budget cuts to various federal agencies. With internal communication channels being scrutinized, Amazon employees posted a petition to calling on the company to reform its policies. 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 said it doesn't track the total number of disabled workers since employee disclosure is voluntary. The rise of remote work during the pandemic helped boost the number of disabled people with jobs to almost 23% last year, close to a record high since the US Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the metric in 2008. Working from home can benefit people with a range of disabilities, including chronic allergies, limited mobility and anxiety disorders. Amazon employees have lodged complaints about workplace conditions in the past. The EEOC as recently as last year was investigating allegations that the company discriminated against pregnant warehouse workers in California, Connecticut, New Jersey and North Carolina by denying their accommodation requests. An agency spokesperson declined to provide an update regarding the status of the investigation. In 2021, Amazon settled a dispute with two workers at its Seattle headquarters who alleged they were fired in retaliation for their workplace activism regarding climate change and working conditions, which included inviting colleagues to a virtual event meant to connect tech employees with warehouse employees. Their allegations led to a labor board complaint accusing Amazon of unfair labor practices. 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