Amazon Warehouses Targeted in Bipartisan Worker Safety Bill (1)

A bipartisan group of lawmakers is proposing Teamsters-backed legislation to expand worker protections at warehouses by paring back the use of production quotas, marking another clash between Capitol Hill and e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Warehouse Worker Protection Act on Thursday, a wide-ranging bill that regulates company quotas that lawmakers and unions say have become overly difficult to meet, contributing to higher-than-average injury rates at e-commerce and retailers’ warehouses.

Rep. Donald Norcross (D-N.J.) is the sponsor of the House companion bill, which is also endorsed by Republican Reps. Mike Lawler (N.Y.) and Chris Smith (N.J.).

“These big companies, they have a lot of power and with their productivity metrics and their quotas they are literally controlling the lives of the workers in their warehouses minute by minute, tracking every move, evaluating them at every turn,” Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.), the bill’s co-sponsor, said in a press conference Thursday with Markey, Teamsters President Sean O’Brien, and warehouse workers who said they were injured on the job.

“That’s what it means to be the people that are delivering our packages every single day, that are making it possible for those packages to be at your door,” she said.

The rare bipartisan workplace safety bill comes as retailers’ warehouses face scrutiny in courts and statehouses, building momentum in Congress to expand protections for workers in an environment more prone to injury and illness than in other industries.

The bill follows similar proposals that have passed in mostly Democrat-controlled state legislatures. New York, California, Washington, and Minnesota have enacted laws regulating quotas in warehouses.

The bill would establish a new Fairness and Transparency Office within the Wage and Hour Division at the Department of Labor to regulate warehouse worker protections.

The legislation would also require companies to provide employees with a written description of their production quotas. The bill defines “quota” as the quantified number of tasks that are expected to be completed at a particular specified speed without a specified number of errors.

The employer would also have to disclose how those quotas are being monitored, including a description of any workplace surveillance technology. Advocates and lawmakers have said companies like Amazon have abused the use of “robot bosses” to monitor workers’ productivity.

Workers would be exempt from quotas during meal and bathroom breaks and they can’t be used to prevent or discourage organizing, under the legislation.

Employers that don’t comply would be subject to significant monetary penalties. The bill also would create a new private right of action allowing workers to sue their employers for violations.

The DOL would also have to issue, within four years of the legislation’s enactment, an ergonomic program standard that includes requirements for job evaluation, reduction of forceful and repetitive jobs, and medical management that includes early referrals for medical attention.

“It’s a common misperception that Amazon has fixed quotas, but we do not. Our Time Logged In policy assesses whether employees are actually working while they’re logged in at their station,” said an Amazon spokesperson. “Our employees can see their own performance at any time and can talk to their manager if they’re having trouble finding the information.”

The company has invested over $750 million in technologies, resources, training, and programs in 2024 to further their safety efforts, according to Amazon.

Not Only Amazon

Amazon has been the target of federal and state workplace safety enforcement agencies, battling both the federal DOL and Washington state’s Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, has also launched a probe into the company’s workplace safety practices.

But it isn’t only Amazon that would be impacted by this new bill, lawmakers said. Other retail giants like Walmart Inc. and pet supplier Chewy Inc. have been targeted by the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

“Don’t go thinking that this is only an Amazon problem,” Markey said at the press conference. “The rest of the big warehousing companies are close behind.”

Businesses fired back at the bill immediately after its announcement. Over 60 employer groups wrote members of Congress a letter Thursday, stating they “strongly oppose” the new proposal.

“The bill attempts to micromanage the warehousing industry while simultaneously making it impossible for any business to implement even the most innocuous productivity metrics in the workplace,” Coalition for Workplace Safety spokeswoman Lauren Williams of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors said in a statement.

“The bill forces OSHA to pursue an ergonomics standard, even though Congress nullified a similar effort on a strong bipartisan basis in 2001. Ergonomics is a complex, controversial area of safety and health. The science around it is not settled, and OSHA cannot even determine if an employee’s injuries are related to workplace activities or activities the employee engages in outside of work,” she said.