California Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower speaks at a news conference in Ontario on Tuesday, June 18, 2024, to announce $6 million in fines against Amazon for violating a law restricting warehouse worker production quotas. (Photo by Anjali Sharif-Paul, The Sun/SCNG)

Amazon faces fines of nearly $6 million for failing to tell warehouse workers in Moreno Valley and Redlands about a state law restricting production quotas used to evaluate their performance, California’s labor commissioner said during a Tuesday, June 18, news conference in Ontario.

The fines, announced at the Warehouse Worker Resource Center headquarters, are penalties for violating Assembly Bill 701, a first-of-its kind state law enacted in 2022 and intended to crack down on quotas deemed abusive and a threat to warehouse workers’ safety.

The law makes it illegal for a worker to be fired for falling short of a quota that interferes with taking a lunch or bathroom break. Companies must share productivity requirements and work-speed metrics with employees, the number of tasks workers need to accomplish per hour and the penalties for not doing so.

According to the state Department of Industrial Relations, Amazon — which employs thousands of Inland residents in fulfillment centers filling customers’ online orders — failed to provide workers with a written notice of the quotas the online mega-retailer uses.

State investigators, with the worker resource center’s help, documented 59,017 violations at Amazon’s Redlands and Moreno Valley warehouses between Oct. 20, 2023, and March 9, 2024. With fines amounting to $100 per violation, the state is levying Amazon $5,901,700 in penalties.

In an emailed statement, Amazon spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said, “We disagree with the allegations made in the citations and have appealed.”

“The truth is, we don’t have fixed quotas,” Vogel said.

“At Amazon, individual performance is evaluated over a long period of time, in relation to how the entire site’s team is performing. Employees can – and are encouraged to – review their performance whenever they wish. They can always talk to a manager if they’re having trouble finding the information.”

Vogel referred to an Amazon company blog post outlining how the company protects its workers, including by ensuring that “performance expectations are transparent and fair.”

Amazon also has said it’s invested more than $1 billion in technology and training to improve workplace safety and since 2019, “recordable incident” rates improved 24% while lost time rates improved 77%.

Appearing at the news conference, California Labor Commissioner Lilia Garcia-Brower said the fines stem from a process that started in fall 2022, when the state mailed more than 1,000 letters to warehouse employers informing them about AB 701.

Investigators inspected 107 warehouses and most complied with the law, either by telling workers about quotas or not using them, Garcia-Brower said. As a result, 4,900 workers got a notice and won’t be disciplined for not meeting a quota standard, she said.

“We are not playing the game of gotcha here,” Garcia-Brower said. “When the legislature puts a law in place, we have a duty to the responsible employers to make sure they understand what their obligations are.”

Amazon argues AB 701 doesn’t apply because it uses a “peer-to-peer” evaluation system — exactly the type of system the law tries to prevent, Garcia-Brower said.

Tuesday’s event also featured remarks by Amazon workers, including Nannette Plasencia, who works at the Moreno Valley warehouse where the alleged infractions occurred.

“You have to ask the supervisor almost every day (what the production rate is) because the rate changes almost every day and managers act like they have zero control over the range,” Plasencia said.

“They tell us that the algorithm set the standard. It’s maddening to hear that over and over again every day at work,” she added. “We are humans. Our safety is important to us, but they treat us like one of their robots.”

Veronica Kern, who works at the same warehouse as Plasencia, said workers are under constant pressure to meet unclear performance targets and it’s not uncommon for managers to publicly berate or fire underperforming workers.

“There’s so much pressure to make the quota and sometimes I find myself in the screaming room,” Kern said.

“Amazon calls it the zen room. But we use it to (scream),” she said. “It sounds like the old telephone  booths. Go inside, close the door and scream bloody murder and then once you’re done, you go work. That’s pretty pathetic.”

Unclear quotas leave workers vulnerable to injuries and exhaustion, said Mindy Acevedo, staff attorney for the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates for logistics laborers.

“Without knowing the exact quota, workers instead … default to working as fast as possible to keep their jobs,” Acevedo said.