The corporation did not provide its warehouse employees with the appropriate notification regarding their anticipated quotas.
Amazon has been fined $5,901,700 by the office of the California Labor Commissioner for violations of a regulation that was designed to safeguard workers who are employed in warehouses. The law known as AB-701 mandates that major businesses must provide their employees working in warehouses or distribution centers with written information regarding their expected quotas. This information must include the frequency with which they are expected to complete specific activities, as well as the potential punishments that may be imposed on them if they fail to fulfill those quotas.
This regulation was a response to reports from Amazon employees who stated that they would skip toilet breaks or risk harm in order to achieve the highest possible level of productivity without taking breaks. “The hardworking warehouse employees who have helped sustain us during these unprecedented times should not have to risk injury or face punishment as a result of exploitative quotas that violate basic health and safety,” Governor Gavin Newsom said as he signed the bill in 2021. “They have helped us survive during these times that have never been seen before.”
Amazon was found to have violated these regulations at two of its facilities located in the cities of Moreno Valley and Redlands, with a total of 59,017 breaches being recorded during the inspections conducted by the California Labor Commissioner. AB-701, which went into force in January 2022, is responsible for one of the first significant fines that have been imposed. The multinational technology corporation asserted that it does not have to supply written information because it operates on a “peer-to-peer system.”
“The peer-to-peer system that Amazon was using in these two warehouses is precisely the kind of system that the Warehouse Quotas law was put in place to prevent,” said Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower in an official statement during the formal announcement. “Undisclosed quotas expose workers to increased pressure to work faster and can lead to higher injury rates and other violations by forcing workers to skip breaks.”
As a result of the efforts of State Assembly representative Lorena Gonzalez, the AB701 law was approved by the state legislature in September of 2021. She also played a role in the passage of California’s Assembly Bill 5 (AB-5) in 2019, which sought to improve the protections afforded to gig workers employed by firms such as Uber and Lyft.
In spite of this, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel stated to Engadget that the firm does not agree with the claims that were made in the citations and that they have already filed an appeal against the fines. “The fact of the matter is that we do not have predetermined quotas,” began Vogel. In the context of Amazon, an individual’s performance is evaluated over an extended period of time in relation to the overall performance of the team working on the website. Whenever they choose, employees are free to evaluate their own performance, and they are strongly encouraged to do so. In the event that they are having difficulty locating the information, they are always able to speak with a management.