Amazon, the online retail giant, has been slapped with a $5.9 million fine for imposing costly production quotas in its warehouses, according to an announcement from the California Labor Commissioner’s office on Tuesday.
The quotas were enforced at Amazon’s warehouses located in Moreno Valley and Redlands, east of Los Angeles. The California labor regulatory agency noted that Amazon breached the state’s warehouse quota law nearly 60,000 times.
Enacted in 2022, the warehouse quota law mandates that employers must disclose production quotas to employees and government agencies. It also requires that any disciplinary measures for not meeting these quotas be made transparent.
The Labor Commissioner’s office highlighted that Amazon “failed to provide written notification of the quotas.”
“The peer-to-peer system that Amazon implemented in these two warehouses is precisely the type of practice the warehouse quota law was designed to prevent,” stated Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower in a press release.
In recent years, Amazon has faced increased scrutiny regarding its treatment of warehouse and delivery workers.
