Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon fined $5.9M for breaking labor law in California

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 253 posts

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

#81

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

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…

Two other companies were hit with fines before Amazon. Amazon may have innovative ways of abusing workers but they don't have a monopoly.

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

#82

Post by 6510 »

latentcall wrote: post #50
elevatedastalt wrote: post #37

[flagged]

Good idea, I think that’s a healthy minimum. If C level fellas were aware of the violations or didn’t do their due diligence then let’s say a 5 year minimum prison sentence.

I agree but in this case the duration of the prison sentence should not be disclosed.

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

#84

Post by DaoVeles »

erikaww wrote: post #64
Mo3 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely the fines will become exponentially bigger every time they are caught doing the same, right?

They’ll learn to cover their tracks better

Yep, every time someone is defeated they can learn one of two lessons. How not to do it again OR how to not get caught again.

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

#85

Post by rc_kas »

daedrdev wrote: post #80
elevatedastalt wrote: post #37

[flagged]

Additionally California PAGA lawsuits are notorious for nearly bankrupting small businesses. This case wasn't PAGA, but still people need to realize that sometimes these things are more nuanced than they appear. Infractions are 200 dollars per infraction for every employee, and are religiously perused by private law firms. For example, if a company with 100 employees let employees take lunch whenever they wanted, the…

I like your level of detailed information my friend.

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

#86

Post by geodel »

elevatedastalt wrote: post #37

[flagged]

I am sure this place has lurid fantasies of applying medieval laws of burning people alive or stoning them to death if people concerned are CEOs, billionaire or some such for financial crimes.

On the other hand if laws are applied to their favorite hacker (think one who committed suicide) then the case should not even see the day in court because those laws are of course unlawful.

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

#88

Post by throwaway562if1 »

Mo3 wrote: post #60
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.

Surely the fines will become exponentially bigger every time they are caught doing the same, right?

[dead]

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

#89

Post by DaoVeles »

hipadev23 wrote: post #57
elevatedastalt wrote: post #37

[flagged]

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. Rinse, repeat.

Post reply on HN