In the latest sign of the growing scrutiny of Amazon’s labor practices, the California State Senate on Wednesday approved a bill that would place limits on production quotas for warehouse workers.
The bill, which passed the Senate 26-to-11, was written partly in response to high rates of injuries at Amazon warehouses. The legislation prohibits companies from imposing production quotas that prevent workers from taking state-mandated breaks or using the bathroom when needed, or that keep employers from complying with health and safety laws.
The Assembly, which passed an initial version in May, is expected to approve the Senate measure by the end of the state’s legislative session on Friday.
“In the Amazon warehouse space, what we’re trying to take on is this increased use of quotas and discipline based on not meeting the quotas, without a human factor in dealing with a reason why a worker might not make a quota,” Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez, the bill’s author, said in an interview last week.
Gov. Gavin Newsom had not indicated before the vote whether he would sign the bill, but his staff was involved in softening certain provisions that helped pave the way for its passage.
Experts said the bill was novel in its attempts to regulate warehouse quotas that are tracked by algorithms, as at Amazon, and make them transparent.
“I believe one of Amazon’s biggest competitive advantages over rivals is this ability to monitor their work force, prod workers to work faster and discipline workers when they fail to meet quotas,” said Beth Gutelius, research director at the Center for Urban Economic Development at the University of Illinois Chicago.
“It’s unprecedented for a bill to intervene like this in the ways that technology is used in the workplace,” added Dr. Gutelius, who focuses on warehousing and logistics.
Business groups have strongly opposed the bill, complaining that it will lead to costly litigation and hamstring the entire industry even though it is primarily intended to address labor practices at a single company.
Amazon has not commented on the bill but has said that it tailors performance targets to individual employees over time based on their experience level and that the targets take into account employee health and safety. The company has emphasized that fewer than 1 percent of terminations are related to underperformance.
Business & Economy
The bill would require Amazon and other warehouse employers to disclose productivity quotas to workers and regulators, and would allow workers to sue to eliminate quotas that prevent them from taking breaks and following safety protocols.
While it is unclear how big an impact the bill would have on Amazon’s operations, limiting the company’s hourly productivity quotas would probably affect its costs more than its ability to continue next-day and…
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