Christopher Weber, The Associated Press
13 hours ago
FILE – People leave the entrance to the Amazon San Bernardino fulfillment center in San Bernardino, Calif., Oct. 29, 2013. California has levied two separate $5.9 million fines on Amazon for violating laws that protect warehouse workers by requiring them to work at speeds that endanger their safety, officials announced Tuesday, June 18, 2024. (AP Photo/David McNew, File)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — California has fined e-commerce giant Amazon a total of $5.9 million for subjecting its warehouse workers to excessive working conditions and endangering their safety, officials said Tuesday.
Two complaints issued by the California Labor Commission in May allege that Amazon.com Services LLC violated the state's warehouse quota law at facilities in Riverside and San Bernardino counties east of Los Angeles.
The law, which will come into force in 2022, “requires warehouse employers to inform employees in writing of the quotas they must comply with, including the number of tasks they must perform per hour and possible penalties for failing to meet the requirements,” the Labor Commissioner's Office said in a statement.
Amazon was fined $1.2 million for the Redlands warehouse and $4.7 million for the nearby Moreno Valley warehouse.
The company said Tuesday it disagreed with the allegations and would appeal the charges.
“The reality is, we don't have fixed quotas. At Amazon, an individual's performance is evaluated over time in the context of their team's performance across sites,” company spokeswoman Maureen Lynch Vogel said in a statement. “Employees can and are encouraged to review their performance at any time, and if they're having trouble finding information, they can always ask their manager for help.”
The complaint alleges that Amazon failed to provide written notice of the quotas.
Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia Brower said Amazon was engaging in “exactly the kind of system the quota law was designed to prevent.”
“Undisclosed quotas put workers under pressure to work faster and can increase injury rates and other violations by forcing them to take breaks,” she said in a statement.
Authorities began investigating in 2022 after employees at two Southern California facilities reported being subject to unfair allocation practices, according to the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for improved working conditions.
Similar laws have been enacted in Minnesota, New York, Oregon and Washington, according to the center, and in May, Sen. Edward Markey, a Democrat from Massachusetts, introduced a federal version of the Warehouse Worker Protection Act in Congress.
