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The California Labor Commission fined Amazon $5,901,700 for violating a law meant to protect warehouse workers, AB-701, which requires large companies to provide warehouse and distribution center workers with written expectations, including how often they should perform certain tasks and the consequences for not meeting those quotas.
The law was created in response to stories of Amazon workers who said they risked injury by skipping bathroom breaks to maximize productivity. “Hardworking warehouse workers who have kept us going during this unprecedented time should not have to risk injury or be penalized as a result of exploitative quotas that violate their basic health and safety,” said Governor Gavin Newsom. Said When he signed the bill in 2021.
According to the California Department of Labor, Amazon did not comply with these rules at two facilities in Moreno Valley and Redlands, where department inspections recorded 59,017 violations, one of the first huge fines imposed under AB-701, which went into effect in January 2022. The tech giant argued that it was not required to provide written information because it uses a “peer-to-peer system.”
“The peer-to-peer system Amazon used at these two warehouses is exactly the system the Warehouse Quota Act was designed to prevent,” Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia Brower said in a public statement. statement“Undisclosed quotas put pressure on workers to work faster and can lead to increased injury rates and other violations by forcing them to take breaks.”
AB 701 was passed in California in September 2021 under the leadership of state Assembly member Lorena Gonzalez, who also helped pass California’s AB-5 bill in 2019, which sought to strengthen protections for gig workers who work for companies like Uber and Lyft.
However, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel told Engadget that the company doesn’t agree with the allegations made in the complaint and is already appealing the fine. “The reality is, we don’t have fixed quotas,” Vogel continued. “At Amazon, individual performance is evaluated over time in the context of the performance of teams across our sites. Employees can and are encouraged to review their own performance at any time, and if they’re having trouble finding information, they can always talk to their manager.”
Updated June 18, 2024 at 8:48pm: We’ve updated the headline of this post to correct the fines Amazon is facing. We apologize for the error. We’ve also added a statement from Amazon.