Amazon Fined $5.9Million for Violating Warehouse Worker Protection Law

TapTechNews June 19th, Amazon was fined $5,901,700 (TapTechNews note: currently about 42.878 million yuan) by the California Labor Commissioner's Office for violating a law protecting warehouse workers. According to California's AB-701 bill, large companies must inform warehouse or distribution center workers in writing about their expected workload, including the frequency with which they perform a specific task and the consequences that may result if they fail to complete the task. This is one of the first large fines issued after the implementation of the AB-701 bill, which came into effect in January 2022.

The introduction of this law is due to various problems reported by Amazon warehouse workers, such as giving up toilet breaks and rest or taking the risk of injury in order to increase production. The Labor Commissioner's Office said on Tuesday that Amazon 'failed to provide written notice of the quota'.

According to the California Labor Commissioner, two warehouses of Amazon located in Moreno Valley and Redlands failed to comply with relevant regulations, and a total of 59,017 violations were found during the labor office's inspection.

Amazon said it will appeal the fine and argued that since a 'point-to-point system' is used, there is no need to provide written notice to workers.

The point-to-point system used by Amazon in these two warehouses is exactly the type of system that the warehouse quota law is designed to prevent, said Lilia García-Brower, the Labor Commissioner, in an official statement. Undisclosed quotas put workers under greater pressure, forcing them to work faster and potentially leading to higher injury rates and other violations, such as giving up break times.