A worker sorts through orders at an Amazon fulfillment center in San Bernardino in 2013. A new bill in the U.S. Senate seeks to ban warehouse worker production quotas that its authors say jeopardize worker safety or force them to skip lunch or restroom breaks. Getting a few more packages out shouldn’t injure workers or force them to skip lunch or a bathroom break, according to a new U.S.
“The Warehouse Worker Protection Act is about dignity, safety, and respect for the workers that make companies run,” the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Massachusetts,. “When corporations repeatedly use and abuse warehouse workers, they show us that their number one obligation is to their profits.”
Inland Empire warehouse workers and their advocates have long complained about being forced to work at breakneck, dangerous speeds to process goods at distribution centers, especially those owned by Amazon., the bill makes it illegal for a worker to be fired for falling short of a quota that interferes with taking a lunch or bathroom break.
“It’s providing more transparency and fairness in the workplace around how work is measured and quantified and monitored.” The bill “also goes a little farther than California in one great way,” Shadix said. It directs the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration to create a national ergonomics standard within three years, he said.
“It’s a common misperception that Amazon has fixed quotas, but we do not,” the statement provided by Lighty added. “Our Time Logged In policy assesses whether employees are actually working while they’re logged in at their station” and “our employees can see their own performance at any time and can talk to their manager if they’re having trouble finding the information.”on the U.S.