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> California investigated two Amazon facilities near Los Angeles and in May found that the company failed to “provide written notice of quotas to which each emp

> California investigated two Amazon facilities near Los Angeles and in May found that the company failed to “provide written notice of quotas to which each employee is subject,” according to a copy of the citation shared with The Washington Post by the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, a nonprofit that advocates for improving working conditions at warehouses. Very few workplaces have written quotas for employees. Be angry about Amazon or whatever, but let's just be real that if Amazon is guilty of heinous crimes for not giving workers a strict written quota, so are 98% of other employers, large and small.

ceejayoz 2y ago
The issue isn’t having quotas, I don’t think. It’s more the Office Space “minimum pieces of flair” aspect of hiding the rules from the employees.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> if Amazon is guilty of heinous crimes for not giving workers a strict written quota The issue isn’t having or not having quotas. It’s having a quota and not telling employees about it.
- bpodgursky 2y ago
  Why is this a meaningful difference? Any at-will employer could stack-rank and cut the lowest 5% of workers every month. Or adjust the quota every month at the 5th percentile. There's literally no difference to workers, it's always "make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job.
  - lokar 2y ago
    Because you are also not allowed quotas that won’t accommodate rest breaks. If the quota is secret you can’t enforce breaks.
  - maximinus_thrax 2y ago
    Did you read the article? > “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,” What you're saying about: > make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job. Is literally that. It just adds pressure which leads to accidents. When you don't know the playing field, you're going to assume the worst and then work yourself to death. It's sad to see HN defending this approach.
  - spaceguillotine 2y ago
    This is pretty close to what temp agencies do at tech companies, i witnessed it at Google with multiple agencies and production quotas.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
> Very few workplaces have written quotas for employees That's because they don't have quotas. If they don't have a __written__ quota then they can't hold employees to a quota; it's as simple as that.

ceejayoz 2y ago

The issue isn’t having quotas, I don’t think. It’s more the Office Space “minimum pieces of flair” aspect of hiding the rules from the employees.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> if Amazon is guilty of heinous crimes for not giving workers a strict written quota The issue isn’t having or not having quotas. It’s having a quota and not telling employees about it.

bpodgursky 2y ago
Why is this a meaningful difference? Any at-will employer could stack-rank and cut the lowest 5% of workers every month. Or adjust the quota every month at the 5th percentile. There's literally no difference to workers, it's always "make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job.
- lokar 2y ago
  Because you are also not allowed quotas that won’t accommodate rest breaks. If the quota is secret you can’t enforce breaks.
- maximinus_thrax 2y ago
  Did you read the article? > “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,” What you're saying about: > make sure you are a bit better than the people other people applying for the job. Is literally that. It just adds pressure which leads to accidents. When you don't know the playing field, you're going to assume the worst and then work yourself to death. It's sad to see HN defending this approach.
- spaceguillotine 2y ago
  This is pretty close to what temp agencies do at tech companies, i witnessed it at Google with multiple agencies and production quotas.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

> Very few workplaces have written quotas for employees That's because they don't have quotas. If they don't have a __written__ quota then they can't hold employees to a quota; it's as simple as that.