As first reported by CNBC, the New York State Assembly passed the Warehouse Worker Protection Act (WWPA) on Friday. This law requires Amazon and other companies to tell their workers what their production goals are. If New York Governor Kathy Hochul (D), who is a Democrat, signs it into law, employees won’t have to skip lunch or bathroom breaks to meet goals.
When a warehouse worker is hired, the WWPA says that companies must give them “a written statement of each quota to which the employee is subject.” This is similar to a policy that was passed in September in California (or within 30 days of the bill becoming law). It also says that employers can’t punish workers for not meeting quotas they didn’t know about or for having to skip breaks to do so. CNBC says that Governor Hochul hasn’t said whether she plans to sign the law or not.
Even though the bill doesn’t mention Amazon by name, New York Senator Jessica Ramos (D) said that it is meant to address Amazon’s management practises, which she says “dehumanise workers and punish the very human need to rest.” People have said in the past that Amazon uses an automated tracking system to measure how productive its workers are. Some workers are said to pee in bottles and skip bathroom breaks in order to meet the e-commerce giant’s production goals.
Amazon’s offices and warehouses in New York and across the country are getting better organised. In April, the first people to join a union were people who worked at an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, New York. So far, it is the only warehouse to vote in favour of unionisation. A nearby warehouse on Staten Island voted against unionisation last month, and the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU) is disputing the results of a union election in Bessemer, Alabama, claiming that Amazon again messed with the results.
