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Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#11

Post by kstrauser »

fallingknife wrote: post #7

The issue here is that Amazon had productivity quotas for its workers that were kept secret from the workers. It's the keeping a secret part that is illegal. On the one hand, this seems reasonable, but the fact that the law only applies to warehouse workers (the "Warehouse Quota Law") and was passed in 2022 makes me suspicious that this isn't a good faith worker protection law but rather specifically targeted at Amaz…

Are secret quotas common in other settings? I don't think I've ever been told about one, and I had a whole lot of other jobs before starting this career.

Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#13

Post by ceejayoz »

bpodgursky wrote: post #10

> California investigated two Amazon facilities near Los Angeles and in May found that the company failed to “provide written notice of quotas to which each employee is subject,” according to a copy of the citation shared with The Washington Post by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for improving working conditions at warehouses. Very few workplaces have written quotas for employees. Be…

The issue isn’t having quotas, I don’t think. It’s more the Office Space “minimum pieces of flair” aspect of hiding the rules from the employees.

Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#14

Post by JumpCrisscross »

bpodgursky wrote: post #10

> California investigated two Amazon facilities near Los Angeles and in May found that the company failed to “provide written notice of quotas to which each employee is subject,” according to a copy of the citation shared with The Washington Post by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for improving working conditions at warehouses. Very few workplaces have written quotas for employees. Be…

> if Amazon is guilty of heinous crimes for not giving workers a strict written quota

The issue isn’t having or not having quotas. It’s having a quota and not telling employees about it.

Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#15

Post by RexM »

kstrauser wrote: post #11
fallingknife wrote: post #7

The issue here is that Amazon had productivity quotas for its workers that were kept secret from the workers. It's the keeping a secret part that is illegal. On the one hand, this seems reasonable, but the fact that the law only applies to warehouse workers (the "Warehouse Quota Law") and was passed in 2022 makes me suspicious that this isn't a good faith worker protection law but rather specifically targeted at Amaz…

Are secret quotas common in other settings? I don't think I've ever been told about one, and I had a whole lot of other jobs before starting this career.

Common or not, if the practice is bad why make the law specific to warehouse workers instead of making it a general law that applies to everyone?

Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#16

Post by vdqtp3 »

kstrauser wrote: post #11
fallingknife wrote: post #7

The issue here is that Amazon had productivity quotas for its workers that were kept secret from the workers. It's the keeping a secret part that is illegal. On the one hand, this seems reasonable, but the fact that the law only applies to warehouse workers (the "Warehouse Quota Law") and was passed in 2022 makes me suspicious that this isn't a good faith worker protection law but rather specifically targeted at Amaz…

Are secret quotas common in other settings? I don't think I've ever been told about one, and I had a whole lot of other jobs before starting this career.

I'm not actually arguing that they existed for you, but if they did I wouldn't expect you to be told about secret quotas.

Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#17

Post by jxf »

RexM wrote: post #15
kstrauser wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are secret quotas common in other settings? I don't think I've ever been told about one, and I had a whole lot of other jobs before starting this career.

Common or not, if the practice is bad why make the law specific to warehouse workers instead of making it a general law that applies to everyone?

I think it's a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" thing. If you make the law sweeping, businesses will complain it's an infringement of big government. If you make the law targeted, businesses will complain they're being unfairly selective.

Re: Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

#20

Post by fallingknife »

kstrauser wrote: post #11
fallingknife wrote: post #7

The issue here is that Amazon had productivity quotas for its workers that were kept secret from the workers. It's the keeping a secret part that is illegal. On the one hand, this seems reasonable, but the fact that the law only applies to warehouse workers (the "Warehouse Quota Law") and was passed in 2022 makes me suspicious that this isn't a good faith worker protection law but rather specifically targeted at Amaz…

Are secret quotas common in other settings? I don't think I've ever been told about one, and I had a whole lot of other jobs before starting this career.

Well you wouldn't have been told about the secret quota, would you? But let's say you're right that it isn't common outside of warehouses. Even in that case, why would you write a law only for warehouses?

Let's say that there was a problem where cattle ranches were giving out beatings for underperforming workers. Would you fix this by writing a law that says "it is illegal for cattle ranches to beat employees" or would you just outlaw all beatings of all employees so that you won't have to revisit this when another industry decides to do it?

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