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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

#21

Post by _DeadFred_ »

barnabask wrote: post #6
StarterPro wrote: post #3

That's, what? Half an hour of operation to them?

In Finland, speeding fines are based on your income. Can we have that, but for corporations?

Countries should take stock equity over fines. It dilutes the owners share value and punishes stockholders who don't make a company's' boards accountable. With ownership, the government also then has the ability to 'peer behind the veil' more easily and make sure management is behaving. Finally, if a company continues to misbehave the government over time takes ownership and can then replace the board (think a corporate equiv to a death penalty, since under the law corporations are treated as people).

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

#23

Post by gnicholas »

barnabask wrote: post #6
StarterPro wrote: post #3

That's, what? Half an hour of operation to them?

In Finland, speeding fines are based on your income. Can we have that, but for corporations?

This happens to some extent via punitive damages, which are designed to be large enough to get the attention of the offender. I don't think it happens outside of punitive damages though.

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

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

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…

> makes me suspicious that this isn't a good faith worker protection law but rather specifically targeted at Amazon

It seems to target Amazon, but for good reasons [1].

The law’s principal mode of enforcement is private [2]. This fine appears to be more the state laying a trail of breadcrumbs for private attorneys to follow than the last word on the matter.

> why is it allowed for all other industries?

Defining what constitutes a quota is hard. If there isn’t evidence of abuse in other settings, it doesn’t make sense to expand the regulatory burden for the hell of it.

[1] https://www.schneiderwallace.com/media/california-new-york-a...

[2] https://www.californiaemploymentlawreport.com/2021/09/califo...

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

#26

Post by bpodgursky »

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 really doubt there was a strict quota, more likely some kind of stack ranking.

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

#27

Post by doe_eyes »

barnabask wrote: post #6
StarterPro wrote: post #3

That's, what? Half an hour of operation to them?

In Finland, speeding fines are based on your income. Can we have that, but for corporations?

I like the idea. If you're a startup that's losing money, you can get paid by the government to commit crime?

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

#28

Post by jamesrr39 »

barnabask wrote: post #6
StarterPro wrote: post #3

That's, what? Half an hour of operation to them?

In Finland, speeding fines are based on your income. Can we have that, but for corporations?

Yes. See GDPR (max fine 4% of global annual revenue) or the new EU Digital Services Act (max fine 6% of global annual revenue).

These are both fairly new laws, if you look at the laws they replace (which themselves may not even be that old), the fines are a huge leap up.

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

#29

Post by j-bos »

_DeadFred_ wrote: post #21
barnabask wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Finland, speeding fines are based on your income. Can we have that, but for corporations?

Countries should take stock equity over fines. It dilutes the owners share value and punishes stockholders who don't make a company's' boards accountable. With ownership, the government also then has the ability to 'peer behind the veil' more easily and make sure management is behaving. Finally, if a company continues to misbehave the government over time takes ownership and can then replace the board (think a corpor…

Is this a novel concept?
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