Amazon’s Attendance Systems Counted Pregnancy Breaks Against The Workers

A request moved through software before it reached a chair

The complaint challenges two connected parts of Amazon’s workplace infrastructure. The first is the accommodation process run through Disability & Leave Services, known as DLS. Workers allegedly had to submit requests through an online platform or Amazon’s A-to-Z employee application, with medical documentation demanded for every request.

The second part is attendance enforcement. Amazon workers receive a bank of unpaid time off, or UPT. The complaint says time is deducted from that bank for missed work and certain breaks. Once the balance drops below zero, an automated warning gives the employee 48 hours to explain the absence and says discipline may include termination.

A companion system records time off task, or TOT, while a worker is on site but not performing tracked activity. The lawsuit alleges that pregnancy-related breaks and pumping time could be labeled inactive, generating warnings and possible termination even when a manager had verbally approved the break.

1. A worker requests a basic change. The examples in the complaint include bathroom access, a place to sit, food or rest breaks, lifting limits, and time to pump breast milk.
2. The centralized system requests medical documentation. The plaintiffs argue that paperwork should not be required for several routine pregnancy accommodations and that obtaining it can take weeks.
3. The worker keeps doing the original job while waiting. The complaint describes workers continuing to stand, climb ladders, bend, and lift heavy packages without effective interim changes.
4. Time away is recorded as absence or inactivity. UPT allegedly fell during medical absences and breaks, while TOT accumulated during pumping and other pauses in scanned work.
5. The attendance record triggers discipline. Warning emails demanded explanations or more documentation. Each named plaintiff was eventually fired under one of the challenged attendance policies, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit argues that the systems were not merely adjacent. It alleges they formed a loop: documentation requirements delayed accommodations, the delay made breaks or absences necessary, and those same breaks or absences produced attendance penalties.

The law treats several pregnancy needs as routine

Congress enacted the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) in 2022. The law requires covered employers to provide reasonable accommodations for limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, lactation, and associated medical conditions unless the change would create an undue hardship for the employer.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s implementing rule identifies four modifications that should be reasonable in virtually all cases: allowing a worker to carry and drink water, take additional restroom breaks, switch between sitting and standing as needed, and take breaks to eat or drink. The agency calls these “predictable assessments” because they address common needs during uncomplicated pregnancies and usually impose little cost or disruption.

The EEOC rule quoted in the complaint says employers generally should not require documentation beyond a worker’s own statement for those four modifications. It separately says medical documentation is not reasonable for workplace changes involving lactation, nursing, or pumping.

This does not make every pregnancy-related request automatically valid or eliminate an employer’s ability to seek documentation in every circumstance. The dispute is narrower. The plaintiffs contend that Amazon imposed a blanket documentation requirement even when the requested change fell into a category the EEOC says should ordinarily be handled quickly and without a doctor’s note.

Why delay is part of the claim: The PWFA recognizes that an unnecessary delay can itself amount to a failure to accommodate. Early in pregnancy, a worker may not yet have seen a medical provider, and repeated appointments for each new limitation may not be readily available.

Four workers describe four routes to the same endpoint

The allegations did not begin with this lawsuit

The federal complaint places the four workers’ accounts alongside earlier government scrutiny. Those proceedings do not prove the allegations in this case, but they indicate that similar accommodation practices have been challenged in more than one forum.

1. May 2022The complaint says the New York State Division of Human Rights filed an action alleging that Amazon forced pregnant workers and workers with disabilities onto unpaid leave rather than allowing them to work with reasonable accommodations.
2. October 2025After a multiyear investigation, the New Jersey attorney general sued Amazon over an alleged pattern of pregnancy and disability discrimination. The federal complaint says that investigation found Amazon required all accommodation requests to use an online system, demanded medical documentation, and could cancel requests after seven days without it.
3. February 2026In Hatch’s administrative case, the EEOC found reasonable cause to believe Amazon failed to accommodate her pregnancy. According to the complaint, the agency also found reasonable cause concerning a nationwide class of female warehouse associates. A reasonable-cause determination is an agency finding, not a final judicial determination of liability.
4. September 2026Barclay, Green, Hatch, and Parks filed the proposed class action in federal court in New York.

Primary source: Willamina Barclay, Kristina Green, Jennifer Hatch, and Dazaria Parks v. Amazon.com Services, LLC, Case No. 1:26-cv-05531, Class Action Complaint and Jury Demand, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, filed September 8, 2026.