California Bill Passes, Giving Amazon Warehouse Workers Power To Fight Speed Quotas

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A man works at a conveyor belt at the 855,000-square-foot Amazon warehouse in New York in 2019.

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«We’re absolutely targeting the practices of Amazon that are being picked up, quite frankly, by other retailers, says Gonzalez, who previously spearheaded California’s high-profile law that sought to make it harder for gig companies like Uber to hire workers as contractors.

Repetitive exertion raises risks of injury.

For a while, Amazon said its higher injury rates were because it got more diligent about reporting than its rivals. This year, in his last letter to shareholders as CEO, founder Jeff Bezos told shareholders that Amazon has hired 6,200 safety professionals and pledged $300 million to work safety projects for 2021.

Bezos also said about 40% of Amazon’s work-related injuries were musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs), which tend to be recorded as sprains, strains, back pain and other injuries. They are often a product of exertion plus repetition in an awkward, unnatural position. In the U.S., they account for over half of all nonfatal workplace injuries where workers wound up in an emergency room.

Jordan Barab, former deputy assistant secretary at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, said risk of injury is present across warehouses and factories, adding: «And in (Amazon’s) case, obviously, one of the major causes of the musculoskeletal injuries are the quotas, which cause an unhealthy pace of work.

Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lighty told NPR that workers can do some activities involving «short mental and physical breaks like stretching without accruing «time off task. She also argued the company’s demographics «skewed its injury dаta: Counter to what some might expect, she said, workers aged 18 to 24 and those new on the job were found more likely «to claim a work-related MSD, and Amazon employs a lot of younger workers new to warehousing.

Business groups say the bill casts too wide a net.

Amazon took no official stance on California’s AB 701, but business groups are fighting it, saying the new rules would unleash a torrent of lawsuits against many industries.

Rachel Michelin, who heads the California Retailers Association, said productivity quotas were proprietary information and suggested that the bill’s true nature was to boost labor organizing efforts.

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«If there is a business that is not living up to the workplace standards, they should be held accountable — we don’t disagree with that, said «But do we need this broad, sweeping legislation … that impacts every aspect of the supply chain in California? I don’t think so.

California’s Republican lawmakers have also argued that companies would be forced to raise prices to offset the costs of the new rules. Michelin and other critics say they would support a plan to boost financing of California OSHA to step up its enforcement of safety rules.

An earlier version of the bill had planned to direct state OSHA to write specific new rules for warehouses to prevent injuries. The plan, which would have taken years, was scrapped in negotiations in favor of other stepped up enforcement by state regulators.

Editor’s note: Amazon is among NPR’s financial supporters.