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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

#151

Post by chefandy »

Aurornis wrote: post #92
dolni wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fine doesn't even amount to a slap on the wrist. It's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. Why be law abiding when you could break the law and potentially make more money? You'd have to be stupid to be law abiding in a system like that.

> It's like if someone stole $1000 worth of merchandise from a store and the only punishment is a $1000 fine... and you get to keep what you stole. No, it's not like that at all. The fine was for two specific locations and it was for not disclosing specific quotas in writing. Drawing analogies to a person stealing from a store doesn't make sense. The fine was likely calculated to offset any potential gains they may h…

Well, if you have an unethical profitable company-wide policy that's illegal in many jurisdictions that is punished by merely trying to offset your gains from what's provable, and you're unlikely to be prosecuted everywhere it's illegal, it's still a huge net gain for a company to break the law. The idea behind fines being large enough to make a company really hurt is they're discouraging some MBA sitting down and figuring out that violating [labor/environmental/financial/etc] regulations designed to protect the public's interests are actually more profitable than the punishment, so the appropriate business decision is to ignore the law.

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

#152

Post by 23B1 »

Aurornis wrote: post #99
23B1 wrote: post #62

1. Proportionality. Fines should be proportional to the company's size, revenue, and the severity of the violation. The financial impact should be significant enough to grab the company's attention and incentivize change. 2. Escalating penalties. Implement a system of escalating penalties for repeated violations w/increased monitoring. 3. Transparency. Publicly disclose the details of labor violations and the fines i…

> Proportionality. Fines should be proportional to the company's size, revenue, and the severity of the violation. The financial impact should be significant enough to grab the company's attention and incentivize change. This is a fine for a local violation. Trying to make it proportional to the entire company's size (which expands far beyond those locations and even business types) would be insane. The fines are cal…

I've provided a summary of proposals, not a comprehensive regulatory framework. Please reread the rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#153

Post by vitus »

daedrdev wrote: post #109
vitus wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have first-hand experience with PAGA lawsuits, and I am not a lawyer, but: > employers are required to require employees take lunch within 5 hours of starting the day This seems like a misrepresentation of the relevant statutes. Per Brinker Restaurant Corporation v. Superior Court, > In a unanimous opinion authored by Associate Justice Kathryn M. Werdegar, the court explained that neither state statutes nor t…

I'm sure what I said about 5 hours is mostly accurate, the specific rule in California labor law mentions the 5 hour requirement. > In compliance with California labor laws, nonexempt employees are entitled to an unpaid meal or lunch break lasting a minimum of 30 minutes for shifts exceeding five hours. This break, which should commence before the completion of the fifth hour of work, can be waived only if the workda…

> the specific rule in California labor law mentions the 5 hour requirement.

You're not wrong here.

> This means Employees are basically required to take the meal break before 5 hours

I don't think this characterization is supported, though. For one, the law only applies to non-exempt (usually: non-salaried) employees, and for another, case law (typically citing Brinker) consistently holds that the employer is not required to enforce that the employee takes the full meal break at the appropriate time, merely that the employer provide opportunity to do so. The actual opinion from Brinker states:

> Specifically, we conclude that (1) while employers cannot impede, discourage or dissuade employees from taking rest periods, they need only provide, not ensure, rest periods are taken; (2) employers need only authorize and permit rest periods every four hours or major fraction thereof and they need not, where impracticable, be in the middle of each work period; (3) employers are not required to provide a meal period for every five consecutive hours worked; (4) while employers cannot impede, discourage or dissuade employees from taking meal periods, they need only provide them and not ensure they are taken; and (5) while employers cannot coerce, require or compel employees to work off the clock, they can only be held liable for employees working off the clock if they knew or should have known they were doing so.

https://casetext.com/case/brinker-restaurant-corp-v-superior...

One interesting application in case law that I found is that apparently being on-call during a meal break is sufficient to result in a violation.

https://casetext.com/analysis/california-supreme-court-no-on...

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

#154

Post by raoulw »

schneems wrote: post #121

Is this more or less than they made from breaking said law. I know regulatory capture is a thing but it seems like there should be some minimum “Crimes committed for financial gain that are punished with a fine must have a minimum fine of 100x the amount of money they made from the crime” The 90’s saw a constant stream of journalists and politicians praising 3 strikes laws. Where’s our “100x FAFO laws”?

It’s ~ six minutes of revenue.

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

#155

Post by nomel »

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #149
nomel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was for two specific locations, so it seems it should be based on something related to those specific location, rather than worldwide profits across all, unrelated, business units.

In countries with day-fines (like Finland), do you get fined less for speeding if you were driving to your side gig where you make less money than your day job?

No, but you get fined for that moment, not for all the miles you drove that year.

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

#156

Post by cool_dude85 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #133
nwienert wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On a more general note, fines need to be something like 5-10x of the benefit, not 1-2x. Of course the gov has limited resources, limited ability to win trials, etc, so they need to be far beyond just compensation.

> fines need to be something like 5-10x of the benefit, not 1-2x There is zero chance Amazon was saving more than $1mm at these two warehouses from hiding quotas since the law went into effect. We’re already at 5x+ (most likely 10x+) benefit before considering damages.

I'd be interested to see what labor costs are at these facilities. I could easily buy that, if they rightfully disclosed the quotas they put people under, they would need to pay significantly more in order to attract and retain workers. Maybe 10% - 20% more, including taxes and benefits?

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

#158

Post by Dylan16807 »

fallingsquirrel wrote: post #149
nomel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was for two specific locations, so it seems it should be based on something related to those specific location, rather than worldwide profits across all, unrelated, business units.

In countries with day-fines (like Finland), do you get fined less for speeding if you were driving to your side gig where you make less money than your day job?

If someone drove 8000 hours per day for their job, somehow, it wouldn't make sense to fine them the same percent of income for an infraction.

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

#159

Post by Dylan16807 »

DaoVeles wrote: post #89
hipadev23 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh. HN users aren't saying that. They get upset because the fine is utterly fucking irrelevant and does not serve as a deterrent in any way shape or form.

Exactly. When the fines are this low it is factored as just a cost of doing business. They can go against a whole bunch of laws, crush the competition doing the right this and then pay a fine that amounts to nothing as they hold onto their position. This happens a lot in customer facing medicine space. Make wild claims, make hundreds of millions of profit and then get fined a few million at the tail end of it all. Ri…

Do you think they made that much money off bad behavior in these two warehouses?

If they made one million would this fine be appropriate?

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

#160

Post by Dylan16807 »

ebiester wrote: post #48
elevatedastalt wrote: post #37

[flagged]

Mostly labor law, and when violated at a systemic degree by the largest corporations against those who do not make enough money to have influence against the free market. (Gig workers and anyone not making at least 3x minimum wage - that's a good place to start.) I'd actually prefer that people go to jail over it. I would like executives and middle management to be afraid of violating labor law. If you have 3 employe…

This violation wasn't systemic.
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