California’s Labor Commissioner’s Office found two of Amazon’s distribution centres breached state warehouse laws 59,017 times in just 154 days.

The penalty for each violation is USD100, bringing the total of the fines to USD5,901,700.

The Labor Commissioner’s Office began its inspection of Amazon’s Moreno Valley and Redlands warehouses on last September, working with the non-profit Warehouse Worker Resource Center (WWRC). 

The investigation found there were 59,017 violations of California’s warehouse quotas law between October and March. 

The warehouse quotas law requires warehouse employers to provide written notice of any quotas employees must follow, including the number of tasks they need to perform per hour and any discipline that could come from not meeting the quota.

The Labor Commissioner’s Office says Amazon failed to provide written notice of quotas, arguing they used a peer-to-peer evaluation system.

“The peer-to-peer system that Amazon was using in these two warehouses is exactly the kind of system that the warehouse quotas law was put in place to prevent,” says Labor Commissioner Lilia García-Brower.

“Undisclosed quotas expose workers to increased pressure to work faster and can lead to higher injury rates and other violations by forcing workers to skip breaks.”  

The New York Times reports Amazon has appealed the fines.

In a separate statement, WWRC says “courageous” workers sounded the alarm about the warehouse violations at Amazon.

“Amazon’s push for speed leads to high rates of injuries,” says Mindy Acevedo, WWRC staff attorney.

“We heard from workers that not only were they required to work at an unsafe pace, there was little transparency around work expectations and they could lose their jobs if they failed to meet these undisclosed quotas.”