A nationwide class action lawsuit filed against Amazon on Sept. 8 alleges the company failed to make basic workplace accommodations for potentially thousands of current and previously pregnant employees, and then terminated them or threatened to terminate them when they took breaks or time off for pregnancy-related reasons. Four plaintiffs are named in the complaint.
A Better Balance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for workers' rights, shared the complaint exclusively with USA TODAY at the time of its filing. The lawsuit claims Amazon's discriminatory and retaliatory policies have been well-documented for years, including in several Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints, and have been the subject of multiple state
investigations, including in New York and New Jersey.
USA TODAY has reached out to Amazon for comment and is awaiting a response.
One mother listed as a plaintiff in the lawsuit, 38-year-old Willamina Barclay, said she was wheeled out of the Rochester, New York, Amazon warehouse in a wheelchair during one of her shifts in June 2025. For weeks leading up to the incident, Barclay repeatedly requested accommodations including a seated position, extra breaks, no repetitive squatting, no climbing ladders and a 15-pound limit on the weight she was required to lift. She needed those accommodations, she said, because her doctor classified her pregnancy as high-risk due to her age and the fact that she had recently suffered a miscarriage while at work.
Amazon unreasonably delayed approving her request, the complaint states, and ultimately only granted some of those modifications.
On that day in June, Barclay said she doubled over in severe abdominal pain while lifting heavy objects. Her sister picked her up from work and took her directly to the hospital for a pregnancy-related medical emergency. The next day, Amazon sent Barclay a "Termination Warning Email" for taking too much unpaid time off, according to the complaint.
On her next work day, Barclay said, she called out of work while providing Amazon with a same-day doctor's note explaining she was sick, suffering a pregnancy-related condition.
Amazon fired her four days later, according to the complaint.
"I really don’t want pregnant women to experience the things that I’ve experienced at Amazon," Barclay told USA TODAY. "I don’t want them to feel like they’re disposable."
The lawsuit calls for Amazon to reform its policies and demands compensation for past and ongoing violations. But more than that, A Better Balance President Inimai Chettiar said, she hopes the lawsuit calls attention to the importance of pregnant workers' rights, especially as the EEOC plans to propose regulation revisions to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act in November.
"This (Amazon) case is not an isolated corporate labor dispute," Chettiar said. "It actually sits inside a larger pattern of policy and rhetoric aimed at narrowing women's roles and pushing them out of the workforce and back into a domestic role."
The EEOC has yet to release details on its proposed revisions, and did not respond to a request for details from USA TODAY.
Pregnancy accommodations often overlooked, advocate says
These Amazon workers aren't alone. Megan Thomas, a New York attorney who specializes in harassment, discrimination and retaliation cases, said that while white-collar working mothers sometimes experience discrimination after they return from maternity leave − by being left out of business meetings, being overlooked for company trips or being met with an overly burdensome workload "designed to push her out" − blue-collar workers tend to hit barriers sooner.
And although all pregnant workers can take protected breaks at work under the federal Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, pregnant workers across the United States report violations and discriminatory remarks from colleagues and managers at work.
According to a June survey of nearly 4,000 mothers from the National Partnership for Women and Families, nearly half of the survey respondents who were employed while pregnant said they needed temporary changes in workplace conditions for a healthy pregnancy, such as carrying a water bottle, working while seated, taking frequent bathroom breaks or avoiding lifting heavy objects.
Of those respondents, 35% said their employer only partially adjusted their job conditions and 9% said their employer made no adjustments at all. Pregnant workers of color and those in the lowest income brackets were less likely to receive needed pregnancy accommodations compared to white respondents and respondents with incomes of $100,000 and higher.
Pregnancy accommodations are often overlooked in the broader conversation about support for working parents, which typically centers around child care costs, Chettiar said.
"People with privilege are already getting accommodations and paid leave," Chettiar said. "They don't understand how critical that is for low-wage workers."
Barclay, a single mother, was unemployed for months after Amazon fired her. It was "very stressful," she said, because she was visibly pregnant when she went into interviews at that time.
"Nobody would hire me," she said.
Workplace accommodations for pregnant workers are essential, doctors say
Nearly 200 Amazon workers have called A Better Balance's free legal helpline so far in 2026, Chettiar said. Most of them have similar stories to those represented in the lawsuit, which outlines Amazon's "unlawful policy" of demanding medical paperwork for every pregnancy-related accommodation "no matter how basic" and "forcing pregnant employees to continue working without modifications, at great risk to their health." When pregnant workers do take necessary breaks or absences to get off their feet, visit the doctor or go to the emergency room, Amazon deducts their limited bank of unpaid time off and threatens to terminate them, according to the complaint.
Jennifer Hatch, 47, started working at Amazon's warehouse in Lancaster, New York, in September 2024. It was the best paying job she'd had in a while, she said, and she was good at it. She processed returns, and said her colleagues and team leads commented on her efficiency.
When she found out she was pregnant in January 2025, Hatch told her manager right away and requested regular opportunities to sit, among other typical pregnancy accommodations. Amazon, she said, wanted confirmation that she was indeed pregnant.
"I didn’t understand why they needed more documentation or more proof that I was pregnant, because in January when I first told them, when I found out, my stomach was already showing," Hatch told USA TODAY. "I mean, it was physical proof that I was pregnant."
Amazon repeatedly denied her request for accommodations, according to the complaint. When she tried to sit down in an available chair while working once in early March 2025, a site-level manager flagged her down and forced her to complete her shift while standing, "which made her lightheaded and caused her severe abdominal pain," the complaint states.
Later in March, Hatch arrived for work one day and found her badge to enter the warehouse didn't work. She called security, who looked in their system and found she was no longer an employee. She said she later found out that, like Barclay, the breaks she took at work had cut into her unpaid time off bank and triggered her termination.
Amazon's handling of the situation was especially upsetting, Hatch told USA TODAY, in comparison to the treatment she received at her other part-time job. She also worked at a gas station at the time and asked for similar accommodations there when she found out she was pregnant.
"Within, I’d say, maybe a couple days after I asked for that, I went in for my next shift, and as soon as I went in the manager automatically had a chair behind the register ready for me," she said.
Dr. Bayo Curry-Winchell, a family physician, said workplace accommodations are essential for some pregnant women's health, especially because pregnancy itself increases a person's risk for injury and falls, and studies have found increased risk of preeclampsia and preterm birth among pregnant women in physically demanding jobs. Dr. Alexa Mieses Malchuk, another family physician, said "socioeconomic status is a major determinant of health, especially in pregnancy."
Malchuk generally advises pregnant patients to be careful in workplace environments that involve volatile chemicals and to make sure they are able to stay hydrated, especially if they are "working in a place that's hot, humid or they're just doing something that's very physically demanding." Pregnant people can also develop lower back pain, pubic bone pain and swollen legs and feet, Malchuk said, which "can be made worse by physical labor of any kind."
Amazon fired this mother for taking breaks to pump breast milk, according to lawsuit
Kristina Green, 31, also worked at the Amazon warehouse in Rochester. She requested pregnancy-related accommodations right away, as she was six months pregnant when she was hired in September 2025. According to the lawsuit, Green requested a role that did not involve climbing ladders or lifting more than 25 pounds, in addition to extra breaks to eat, rest her legs and use the bathroom.
While she waited for her request to be approved, Green said her manager "allowed her ad hoc breaks but otherwise made no adjustments." In the meantime, every break she took drained her unpaid time off balance. For two months she continued to request a transfer to a role that didn't require heavy lifting or climbing ladders, and was denied every time, according to the lawsuit.
Green took unpaid medical leave for childbirth toward the end of 2025, and returned to work in late January 2026. That's when she ran into another round of unpaid time off disputes, this time for the breaks she took to pump breast milk.
"I tried not to spend a lot of time pumping because there was multiple times I got in trouble for taking too long," she told USA TODAY, adding that the lactation room was nearly a 10-minute walk from her work station. "It's really hard because they'll time you as soon as you step away from your station."
Green claimed she was written up several times for taking too long to pump before she was fired in May.
Experiences like these add to the fear some pregnant people have about asking for the accommodations they need at work. Curry-Winchell, Malchuk and Thomas all said they've had patients or clients worry about possible job loss or discrimination in the workplace.
They've also noticed socioeconomic disparities in who asks for resources. "People with more money speak up more," Thomas said.
Curry-Winchell recommends pregnant workers talk to their doctor about those concerns and keep a paper trail of their doctor's notes and employer's responses. The same advice holds true for workers who can take maternity leave and have additional workplace protections based on their state or company's policies, Thomas said.
"Before you go out on maternity leave, take screenshots," Thomas said. "Try to do everything you can to keep records of what work was like for you before, your performance reviews, et cetera, and then what it was like after."
After everything, she'd still go back to Amazon if she could
Barclay, who was fired from Amazon in June 2025 and gave birth that November, didn't find a new job until several months after her baby was born. She recently had to leave that job, too, because of unreliable child care. She wants to work, she said, to have an identity outside of motherhood and to be able to afford diapers and other household items.
Even after everything that happened, Barclay said, she would return to work at Amazon if given the opportunity.
"I actually really, really did like Amazon, despite the issues that I had during pregnancy, and how I was dismissed about it," she said. "I felt like it was good money, and it was a good job."
Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline at memitchell@usatoday.com and @maddiemitch_ on X.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Exclusive: Amazon punished pregnant workers for taking breaks, lawsuit alleges
