US Warehouse Worker Protection Act to address warehouse quota systems

Large companies seek to maximise profits by using quota systems that push workers to their physical limits, resulting in high injury rates that can be permanently disabling.

The Act would prohibit dangerous quotas, including those that rely on constant intrusive surveillance, interfere with workers’ ability to use the bathroom and take guaranteed breaks, violate health and safety laws, or prevent workers from exercising their right to organise.

The legislation also creates new transparency requirements for quota systems and directs the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to create an ergonomic management standard for warehouse workers. 

“When workers have the power to come together and organize for better working conditions and safer workplaces, we all do better. These big companies hold a lot of power, and with their productivity metrics and quotas, they are literally controlling the lives of workers minute by minute,” said Democratic Senator Tina Smith from Minnesota who was part of the group of three.

“With this bill, we are saying, enough. We’re putting accountability back in this system and power back in the hands of workers subjected to systems that drive profits for billionaires while they wring workers dry,” she said.

The other two Democratic Senators were Edward J Markey from Massachusetts and Bob Casey from Pennsylvania. Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown from Ohio is an original co-sponsor of the bill.  

“The Warehouse Worker Protection Act is about dignity, safety, and respect for the workers that make companies run,” said Senator Markey in a press release issued by Senator Smith’s office.

“When corporations repeatedly use and abuse warehouse workers, they show us that their number one obligation is to their profits. This bill would guarantee that we have basic standards in place to protect warehouse workers from the worst of corporate greed and move us one step further towards true worker justice,” he said. 

“Workers are skipping breaks to meet quotas set by algorithms, putting their own safety and the safety of their colleagues at risk. I have long fought against surveillance and AI [artificial intelligence] technology to manage workers, and this bill is another step to ensure workers have a voice in the workplace to stand up for their own health and safety,” said Senator Casey.

Smith’s legislation includes provisions similar to a bill Minnesota lawmakers recently approved requiring companies that operate warehouse distribution centres to inform their employees any work quotas they’re held to, disclose data around their individual productivity and prohibits quotas that prevent workers from skipping meal breaks, bathroom breaks or prayer periods.

The bill also authorises state officials to investigate companies for high injury rates.

“…..This legislation would overturn decades of employment and labor law, erode employers’ private property rights and unjustifiably expand the federal government’s intrusion into American workplaces,” National Retail Federation (NRF) executive vice president of government relations David French said responding to the legislation.

“The bill mandates that OSHA promulgate an ergonomics standard, despite a 2001 law passed by bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress that permanently barred OSHA from regulating ergonomics for numerous reasons, including the impossibility of separating workers’ pain from away-from-work life activities, a lack of clear scientific evidence to support such a standard and the massive costs. There is no new rationale for undoing Congress’ prohibition, and NRF strongly opposes this bill,” he added.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (DS)