Amazon dragged its feet on Covid-19 worker safety probe, says California AG, asking for court order

California State Attorney General Xavier Becerra is seeking to force Amazon to cooperate with a months-long investigation into its treatment of warehouse workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

In the spring, Becerra launched a probe looking into working conditions at Amazon’s California warehouses during the pandemic. As part of the probe, Becerra contacted Amazon on Aug. 19 to gather more information on coronavirus-related data, policies, practices and procedures.

Now, Becerra alleges Amazon has failed to adequately respond to the office’s subpoena and he’s asking a Sacramento County Superior Court judge to order Amazon to comply with its requests, according to a court filing published Monday.

“It has been nearly six months since the Attorney General’s initial request to Amazon,” the filing states. “The slow drip of information from Amazon is an insufficient response.”

Without sufficient information, the attorney general can’t “adequately determine” if the company is complying with California laws to protect its workers from the coronavirus, according to the filing.

Representatives from Amazon didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Amazon warehouse workers have routinely criticized the company’s response to the pandemic over the past several months, saying it failed to adequately protect them from the coronavirus. Amazon and its CEO, Jeff Bezos, have pushed back on these accusations, saying the company has gone to “great lengths” to safeguard workers.

Amazon in October disclosed that nearly 20,000 front-line employees contracted Covid-19 between March 1 and Sept. 19. The company said the rate of infection among employees was 42% lower than expected, compared with the general population rate in the U.S.

In the subpoenas, Becerra requested specific details from Amazon on its sick leave policies, cleaning procedures and “raw data” on the number of coronavirus infections and deaths at its facilities in the state. Amazon provided the office with a “small amount of imprecise information,” according to the court filing.

The attorney general “learned more from media reports and press releases than from Amazon directly,” the filing adds.

The information requested by the office from Amazon has become increasingly crucial as the spread of the coronavirus continues to accelerate across the country, the filing notes. The virus has now infected more than 16.4 million people killed more than 300,000 in the U.S., NBC News reports.

“It’s critical to know if these workers are receiving the protections on the job that they are entitled to under the law,” Becerra said in a statement. “Time is of the essence.”

Becerra is set to play a key role in the nation’s response to the coronavirus pandemic after President-elect Joe Biden selected him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.