ACLU looking to form class-action lawsuit against Amazon



SEATTLE -- The ACLU says it's exploring a lawsuit against Amazon and it's doing it in a very public way. The group took out a full-page ad in the Seattle Times.

Looking at the bright bubbly faces on the Amazon campus Friday, you wouldn’t think a cloud of controversy hovers over the company.

Earlier this week a New York Times article painted a pretty ugly picture of working for the online giant: 80-hour workweeks and grueling demands.

“I don't stand for it or support it,” Seattle’s Taylor Sullivan said Friday.

We reached out to the ACLU-Washington office in Seattle and they told us this project "is undertaken by the ACLU national office" and "it pretty much speaks for itself."

But will folks at Amazon speak up for themselves if the allegations hold true?

“A lawsuit definitely raises the bar in terms of the level of concern that's been brought forward about the treatment of employees,” Claire Lewis, who works in South Lake Union, said. “It's giving people a platform that maybe didn't know how to step forward so it seems drastic but at the same time if it encourages people that have felt silent up til now maybe it's what needed to happen.”

We reached out to Amazon to ask what the company has to say about the ad and they never got back with us.

Amazon`s founder, Jeff Bezos, has been very vocal  asking any employees who have felt mistreated to speak out.

Will people go to the company’s Human Resource department or answer the ad, joining a class-action lawsuit? Only time will tell.