California passes bill targeting Amazon's productivity quotas that can penalize bathroom breaks

📆 9/9/2021 6:59 PM
📰 NBCNews

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California lawmakers have passed a landmark bill aimed at regulating Amazon’s use of productivity quotas in warehouses, a labor practice that has become a notorious complaint among its workers.

The State Senate late Wednesday voted 26-11 for the bill, called the Warehouse Workers Protection Act, or AB-701. The bill now heads to the State Assembly for a final vote and will then be sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for signing or veto. Newsom hasn’t indicated yet whether or not he supports the bill.

Amazon uses sophisticated algorithms to track productivity rates among its warehouse workers, logging the number of packages they pick, pack and stow each hour. If workers take a break from scanning packages for too long, Amazon’s internal system will log it as a “time off task” and generate a warning, which can later lead to firings.

Labor groups heralded the legislation as a “historic victory” for warehouse workers at Amazon and other companies.

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California takes on Amazon, passing bill that regulates tough warehouse work metricsAB 701, which passed the Senate after intense opposition, is the first legislation in the U.S. regulating warehouse work conditions and metrics.
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