Labor Commissioner cited $5,901,700 Amazon for violating California’s Warehouse Quotas Law

 

Labor Commissioner cited $5,901,700 Amazon for violating California’s Warehouse Quotas Law. Details in press release issued today. As expected, this made national headlines.

Press Release:

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW: Amazon failed to meet requirements of the Warehouse Quotas law, enacted in 2021 as Assembly Bill 701, at warehouses in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. 

The Labor Commissioner’s Office cited Amazon.com Services, LLC $5,901,700 for violations of the Warehouse Quotas law in two of their distribution warehouses in Moreno Valley and Redlands. This law requires warehouse employers to provide employees written notice of any quotas they must follow, including the number of tasks they need to perform per hour and any discipline that could come from not meeting the quota. 

WHY IT MATTERS: The Labor Commissioner’s Office is committed to enforcing the Warehouse Quotas law, protecting California’s workers, and preventing work quotas that are kept secret from employees or prevent meals, rest, bathroom breaks, and compliance with safety standards. 

What Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower said: “The peer-to-peer system that Amazon was using in these two warehouses is exactly the kind of system that the Warehouse Quotas law was put in place to prevent. Undisclosed quotas expose workers to increased pressure to work faster and can lead to higher injury rates and other violations by forcing workers to skip breaks.”  

Amazon failed to provide written notice of quotas. The employer argued they did not need a quota system because they use a peer-to-peer evaluation system. However, this law defines a quota as work that must be performed at a specified speed or the worker suffers discipline. It also places limits on quotas that prevent compliance with meal or rest periods, use of bathroom facilities, or compliance with occupational health and safety laws. A quota may be illegal if it is not disclosed to workers or precludes employees from exercising these statutory rights.  

The Labor Commissioner’s Office began its initial inspection on September 22, 2022. The investigation found there were 59,017 violations for the Moreno Valley and Redlands warehouses from October 20, 2023 to March 9, 2024. Penalties were issued under Labor Code 2699(f), which provides penalties of $100 for each violation.  

The Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC) assisted the Labor Commissioner’s investigation. WWRC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving working conditions in the warehouse industry in Southern California.  

The Warehouse Quotas law went into effect on January 1, 2022.