Amazon was fined about $5.9 million for alleged quota violations at two of its California warehouses, the state Labor Commissioner’s Office announced Tuesday.
The office said in a press release On Tuesday, Amazon violated the state’s warehouse quota law at two distribution warehouses in Moreno Valley and Redlands. The law, which takes effect in 2022, “requires warehouse employers to provide employees with written notice of any quotas they must follow,” the office said.
This includes informing workers about the number of tasks they need to complete per hour and any “discipline” that may come from not meeting the quota. The office said Amazon “did not provide written notice of the quotas.”
The law imposed limits on quotas “that prevent compliance with meal or rest periods, the use of restrooms, or compliance with occupational health and safety laws,” according to the press release.
The office said Amazon argued it did not need quotas because it uses a peer-to-peer rating system.
“The peer-to-peer system that Amazon was using in these two warehouses is exactly the type of system that the warehouse quota law was designed to prevent. Undisclosed quotas expose workers to greater pressure to work faster and can lead to higher rates of injuries and other violations by forcing workers to miss breaks,” said California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower, in a statement.
Amazon spokeswoman Maureen Lynch Vogel said the company disagrees with the alleged violations and will appeal the citations.
“We disagree with the allegations made in the citations and appealed. The truth is that we do not have fixed quotas. At Amazon, individual performance is evaluated over a long period of time against the performance of the entire site team,” she said in a statement to The Hill.
“Employees can — and are encouraged to — evaluate their performance whenever they wish. They can always speak to a manager if they have trouble finding the information,” she added.
The office said it found 59,017 violations at the Moreno Valley and Redlands warehouses between Oct. 20, 2023, and March 9. It issued fines of $100 for each violation of existing labor laws, according to the press release.
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