California 1st state to set warehouse worker quota limits for retailers like Amazon

www.pe.com/2021/09/22/newsom-signs-ab-701-a-warehouse-bill-aimed-at-productivity-mandates/amp/

Im all for protecting workers in a greedy corrupt system. Might need some tweaking to prevent abuse. Good on California! Ever since the GOPs power grab failed Newsome has been hitting some homeruns!

I am not so supportive of this kind of laws. As far as i understand Amazon pays quite above minimum salary and provides jobs that even though stressful are giving

Much more money that most people with not a good educational background could normally get.

When i was in my 20s those were the kind of jobs i would get. I kind of feel like they are limiting your options.

This is good. I'm hoping over the next decade or so we start to deemphasize work a bit more than we have. Generational differences will help with this--younger folks tend to value experience and happiness over career goals and pure wealth--but we need to change the laws and culture of our society.

We deserve to be more than our job, and we deserve to have good mental health and energy so we can enjoy our time off, both weekends and immediately following work. We shouldn't be so exhausted at the end of the day we don't want to do anything.

What I really want to see is the standardization of the four-day work week; I'm currently working 4x10 hour days and it is amazing; every weekend is a three-day weekend, it really adds a lot of value to your personal life. I don't know if I could ever go back to a five-day work week tbh.

Likewise, I want to see less focus on college education, more focus on trade schools or community college degrees. College used to be, and should be, for people seeking specific education in a field they're interested; now they just sort of say "Go to college or you won't get a good job" to high schoolers and that's bullshit.

TL;DR: I'm not saying you should be able to buy a mansion and fancy cars working in a warehouse, but you should be able to afford a home, should be able to save a little each month, and you shouldn't have to work yourself into the ground to do so.

I am torn, because I half agree with you. But I am a product of my environment and a college grad, and a human, so my petty instincts kick in when I see 23-year olds with no degree making more money than me :P

But at the same time, work is work, and you should not have to risk being in debt due to college just to make a good wage, nor should you have to sacrifice your happiness.

I'm not saying we should start paying grocery store clerks 100+k a year, but at the same time people deserve to get paid a decent (above minimum) wage for essentially all jobs. At the same time, we underpay teachers and social workers (for the most part) and they just might actually deserve six-figure salaries.

Minimum wage in California is a joke btw, this state is crazy expensive.

Cool, well, now Amazon will be doing what they did before by moving their warehouses to a different state and those Californian's these laws claim they're helping won't even be getting that "quite above minimum salary" standing in the unemployment lines.

Is this necessary? Amazon does have a higher than average worker injuries, but the company is working on that without help from the government, and it's already made progress.

Pretty sure this is going to result in exporting yet more labor to Texas.

Also, this is f***ing stupid and will be abused by employees:

If an employee is disciplined within 90 days of requesting the data or complaining to their employer or a state agency about an unsafe quota, AB 701 creates a presumption that the action was retaliatory.

@vl4d_l3nin: Which is why it needs some tweaking. And no labor is being exported. 🤦‍♂️

@eoten: Warehouses arent moving anywhere and nobody is getting fired. 🤦‍♂️ Enough with the pearl clutching, Amazon rarely shutsdown warehouses.

It's not so much about worker safety as it is making constituents think they're actually on their side. Even if it actually hurts their constituents in the end. I'm sure you remember AOC bragging about running thousands of Amazon jobs out of her district?

If you think you're going to afford a Ferrari taping up boxes for the rest of your life, then you have unrealistic expectations about having a job.

its just like almost any other ware house job or walmart store job.

@eoten: Still trolling i see? I bet you jump for joy if the Republicans cut their taxes. Hypocrite. The GOP hates you, get it?

Taping boxes? WTF do you think Amazon does?

There are container ships at sea waiting to dock to unload their cargos on the West and East coasts because they can't get people to unload the ships. Once they are unloaded there are not enough truck drivers to transport the cargos to their destinations. People are not willing to go back to work and the government keeps paying them to stay home. There are shortages all across the country and it is going to get worse and our current administration will just ignore the problem and attack something else that does not mean a hill of beans to distract the people from the real problem and our media are accomplices with the administration.

@JimB: If you have forgotten all the covid benefits are gone, stop lying.

"A bill that seeks to protect California warehouse workers from abusive quota systems has been signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom."

To me that is a unique and different way of saying results, which, BTW, is nothing a politician knows about. Most companies demand results. Sure we can argue if the ends justify the means but this is bad comedy when a politician gets involved.

False. The extra benefits are gone. Perhaps employers should pay better.

They just need to get to a point where Amazon workers aren't pooping in bags to stay on schedule......

Like maybe instead of cry booths they can install extra bathrooms in warehouses and give workers more breaks.

Anyway.... I think some kind of outside influence is necessary for warehouse workers to not be treated like robots. Companies like Amazon sure aren't going to spend money to provide workers with better conditions on their own. Whatever the solution, it needs to not be limited to one state.

@mrbojangles25: The 4-day work week is something that needs to happen. I work long days as it is. Even though my job is one of those "24-hour" jobs, whenever there is a long weekend it takes so much more stress off of me and clients are aware of the long weekend so I can enjoy the personal time with my family. I'd rather work 4 long days, than 5 standard.

Newsome realizing that there is an election next year and decided to make waves. There is likely a legal challenge going to be made here. The government cannot make a mandate like that, in my view. Amazon has already expanded big into Canada, the Canadians are bending over backwards for it. Newsome is going to drive Amazon right out of the state.

It's a delicate balance between keeping these big corps in check, and not losing the amount of jobs/tax revenue it brings into the state.

Employer's have been offering much more in wage's. Longshoreman have always made good wages and truck drivers have made good wages.

If it's that easy why aren't you itching at the chance to help solve this problem? Nothing is stopping you from working a back breaking job for little pay.

@HoolaHoopMan: What jobs that he mentioned are low paying exactly?

I guess they need to up their game. No business is entitled to employees. You have to earn them. Just like employees have to earn their job. It's not a one way street.

I agree with you on a 4 day work week. I'd be bold enough to say that a 32 hour work week is the way to go, simply because technology has made pretty much almost every job easier for workers. I'd say that most jobs are at least 50% faster, and many are 200% faster.

Regular workers are still mostly at the same wages that we used to be in the 80s and 90s. We've gained almost no benefit monetarily or hourly in most regards, yet companies are making more than ever due to the increased productivity speeds, and all of that goes to the top of the food chain.

Funny anybody thinks Amazon is going to shutdown warehouses. Like Amazon is going to pay the extra money to ship from Texas to California. 🤣

No no no dude they're gonna move the warehouses to China and Mexico. I mean, sure, it sort of defeats the purpose of regional distribution centers if they're no longer regional, but...that'll show us!

😜

I kid of course, but I'm sure that's how the scare tactics from the right will go.

@sonic_spark: for many jobs, especially if you have a fairly long commute, 4x 10 hour weeks makes WAY more sense than 8x5.

Or they'll move to an adjacent state.

Meh, maybe. But then they'd lose Prime subscriptions.

California has ~16 million households (over 39 million people), if 2/3 of those households have a Prime subscription, that's a lot of lost income if that goes down to 1/3.

Amazon is better off playing ball. We are better off. Everyone is better off.

*Also, small anecdote: I ordered something not from Amazon for the first time in a long time. It took about nine days to get here. I was actually OK with that; it was somehow reassuring knowing some poor bastard wasn't getting worked to the bone with risk of being fired to ship my package ASAP.

We were fine before Amazon. Packages would still arrive without Amazon. It's a luxury service and frankly I think we'd be better off without it; Amazon costs us jobs, it doesn't create them. How many small businesses have closed or have had to sacrifice profit and happiness to work with Amazon?

the thing about technology and productivity gains all going to the top is just another example of the tragic communist redistribution and monopolies caused by the use of government regulations like patents, trademarks, intellectual property rights etc. In a real free market, ideas wouldn't be property, and the productivity gains would translate more into cheaper products as competition becomes fierce.

Even if you don't commute it's still worth it. You get a whole extra day to yourself. Even better ,that extra day is a weekday. This means you can run errands--go see the doctor, for example--or actually go out of town and see stuff when it's not too busy.

I mean working 9-5 is kind of lame. What do you actually get to do with those extra two hours you get versus working a 10-hour day? You're not going to go anywhere or do anything. It's too early or too late to do any significant chores. You wake up, maybe exercise before work, you go to work, you come home, you eat dinner, then you spend some time with yourself or your family and then you go to bed.

I do the same thing, except I only work four days per week. Sure, I have to get up earlier...but guess waht? I Don't have to set my alarm clock for three days out of the week. I Can set aside an entire day for chores and errands and still have two days left :D

The biggest problem or obstacle will be employers. For many businesses that are open five days a week (or seven), they might not want to be flexible and either close down one day per week (despite being open an extra two hours) or hire some people for that one remaining day.

Things haven't really improved in the last four decades for your average worker. We work more hours, earn less money, and in general we are spending more.

I'm not really concerned too much with money because there isn't much we can do as long as the folks at the top aren't h appy being millionaires and want to be billionaires.

As a result, I think we need to reclaim what we can; our general happiness, our time, and our health. All of this is improved either reducing the hours of the standard work week, or making a four-day work week standard.

@eoten: No they wont. The warehouses there lower transportation costs and speed up deliverly.

Californians aren't going to cancel their prime subscription just because Amazon moves its distribution center. If Amazon decides to move there isn't shit California, or California residents can do about it. Also was what you bought made in China? If so, then some poor bastard got their fingers worked to the bone anyway.

@eoten: Amazon isnt moving shit.

Exactly.

Your free market is a pipe dream.

In reality, smaller companies just get eaten up by bigger companies thanks to stock acquirement, proposals and hostile takeovers. With a fully free market, there'd be no anti-monopoly laws, either. What do you think is going to happen to any competition once gigantic companies like Comcast, Unilever, Nestle, and etc just buys everything up? They are already doing it to organic food makers and other popular start-up brands.

You scream of communist rule, but you don't even know what the hell communism is. Communism is a classless society, where all workers no matter what the job, earn the same amount.

I am simply talking about better working hours. Stop being ignorant and use the internet to research stuff.

And you think it's better if smaller companies are regulated or taxes out of business, and destroyed completely or get eaten up by the government? Most the shit you attribute to a free market is the product of crony capitalism and a pay to play situation created by over regulation and taxes that favor certain companies over others.

Who said anything about taxes? Lots of pivoting going on here. All I ever said is workers could use better hours for the current compensation. Some of you guys have lost the plot.

Then get a better education or work experience and get hired at a place that will give you better hours for what it pays. Stop feeling entitled to a well paying, comfortable job when you have no work experience and a GED.

in a real free market without such government regulations like patents, trademarks, intellectual property, etc, then it would be impossible, literally IMPOSSIBLE for a company to get so big. Most tech companies, apple, google, microsoft, etc etc wouldn't exist today without the government providing cover from the free market. I know what communism is...its when government gets too far and has far too much influence in the operation of the market. The way things are, the way the US was built, its based on hardcore communism. You can try and put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig in the end.

"The way things are, the way the US was built, its based on hardcore communism."

Omg that's hilarious!