Amazon Settles With California Over COVID Notification Bill

Accused of concealing COVID case numbers from its warehouse workers, Amazon has settled with California for half a million dollars. The agreement, just in time for the holiday shopping season, requires the retail giant to notify workers of cases in their workplace within a day and local health agencies within 48 hours. Amazon had been accused of violating California’s "right-to-know" law, making it hard to trace outbreaks of the virus. The settlement agreement doesn’t include any admission of wrongdoing from the company, Reuters reports. It only applies to its sites in California.

Amazon workers have complained that the notification system is flawed and inadequate, CNBC reports. The state’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, released a statement Monday that says Amazon has agreed to have its notification system monitored. The agreement hasn’t been approved by a court yet, but Bonta called it a "done deal," the LA Times reports. Amazon issued its own statement through spokesperson Barbara Agrait saying there were no allegations that the company had failed to notify employees who had been in direct contact with an infected person. The statement said the company is glad Bonta "found no substantive issues with the safety measures in our buildings," Agrait said. The company is facing a worker safety lawsuit in New York, too. (More Amazon stories.)