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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

#41

Post by cde-v »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31
_DeadFred_ wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> With ownership, the government also then has the ability to 'peer behind the veil' more easily and make sure management is behaving You want every politician you don’t like in the country having this power? > if a company continues to misbehave the government over time takes ownership and can then replace the board This is expropriation. (It’s also fines with extra steps and ongoing costs.) > think a corporate equi…

If it reduces corporate power enough we might actually be able to get some trustworthy people into office.

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

#42

Post by JumpCrisscross »

cde-v wrote: post #41
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With ownership, the government also then has the ability to 'peer behind the veil' more easily and make sure management is behaving You want every politician you don’t like in the country having this power? > if a company continues to misbehave the government over time takes ownership and can then replace the board This is expropriation. (It’s also fines with extra steps and ongoing costs.) > think a corporate equi…

If it reduces corporate power enough we might actually be able to get some trustworthy people into office.

> reduces corporate power enough we might actually be able to get some trustworthy people into office

If what did? The history of expropriation is one way: the rulers and their families accumulate the jewels. OpenAI gets fined and given to Biden, Meta gets fined and given to Trump. The economy gets divided by the people who have the power to seize.

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

#44

Post by dolni »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36
numbers wrote: post #32

Amazon made $64,809,782.60 in revenue every hour in Q3 2023. Source: https://www.junglescout.com/blog/how-much-does-amazon-make-i...

How much of that was from Californian warehouses? Because if you don’t do that math, the fine gets overturned by the courts. That not only reduces the deterrence factor. It delays private enforcement by the harmed employees who would have otherwise relied on the commission’s facts in court without the colour of them being overturned on appeal.

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.

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

#45

Post by altairprime »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #37

[flagged]

For labor laws, I’m not sure that’s as bad idea as your sarcasm might indicate. Perhaps, instead, “a mandatory fine shall be levied of 100% of direct and indirect labor expenses (including benefits, unpaid wages, and court-ordered wages) during each calendar year in which labor violations occurred”. That way there’s a natural cap on it to satisfy the courts, but it’s still large enough that any violations are actually a threat to megacorps.

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

#46

Post by bpodgursky »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #14
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.

Why is this a meaningful difference?

Any at-will employer could stack-rank and cut the lowest 5% of workers every month. Or adjust the quota every month at the 5th percentile. There's literally no difference to workers, it's always "make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job.

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

#47

Post by siffin »

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…

Did you even read the article?

Amazon is the third company in California to be hit with fines under this law, joining Sysco and Dollar General, which were fined $318,000 and $1.3 million in October and November, respectively, according to copies of the citations shared with The Post.

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

#48

Post by ebiester »

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 employees, I could see ignorance being an excuse. However, these are giant corporations that have the economies of scale for this to be really profitable (and inhibit competition) and the resources to make sure they stay on the right side of the law.

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