A group of Democratic state representatives called upon their Republican colleagues to support a bill to provide warehouse distribution-center workers with basic workplace safety and labor rights protections, such as transparency about productivity quotas.
Speaking on the Capitol’s South Wing steps on Monday, state Rep. Kim Schofield (D-East Point), said the bill “empowers employees to speak up without fear of retaliation and will keep businesses safe and more competitive.”
“This is a bipartisan issue,” Schofield said. “When workers are protected, businesses prosper,” she added in an appeal to Republican pro-business sensibilities.
House Bill 16, or the “Warehouse Worker Protection Act,” would require distribution center employers like Amazon to provide workers with written descriptions of any work-speed productivity quotas, including discipline measures and bonuses, and it allows workers to review the data and request corrections. It also would prohibit unlawful quotas, and require 15 minutes of paid break time every four hours.
The bill prohibits retaliation against warehouse workers exercising any rights defined in it, and allows them to file complaints and request investigations from the Georgia Department of Labor. It also sets fines of $2,000 per workplace violation and $5,000 for repeated ones.
Warehouse workers across the South are demanding better working conditions and pushing to unionize. Several workers from Amazon’s ATL6 warehouse in East Point joined the Feb. 24 press conference.
“No longer should we be afraid to speak out and speak up,” said Ronald Sewell, a 69-year-old ATL6 warehouse worker. The Amazon ATL6 workers are not unionized, but have staged rallies and sent demand letters to Amazon for safer workplace conditions.
Employers push their workers to go “faster and faster” to fulfill increasing quotas, while denying them the right to go to the bathroom, said Elizabeth Lester, a UPS warehouse worker, who’s unionized with the Teamsters.
“It’s no different than a master who cracks the whip and says ‘move faster – no, you can’t go to the restroom’,” Lester said. “These are our basic rights that we are here now fighting for.”
HB 16 has been referred to the House Committee on Industry and Labor, chaired by state Rep. Bill Werkheiser (R-Glennville) – but with Crossover Day just a week away, Werkheiser’s committee has not yet set a hearing.
“We’re waiting on a date from chairman Werkheiser to allow a hearing,” one of the bill’s co-sponsors, state Rep. Dewey McClain (D-Lawrenceville) told Atlanta Civic Circle. Werkheiser did not respond to emailed questions, but said, via an email from his committee intern, that HB 16 isn’t scheduled to be heard this week.
If the bill doesn’t move out of the Industry and Labor Committee for a House vote before Crossover Day on March 6, it dies. Crossover Day is the deadline day for bills from one chamber to get approved and sent to the other chamber.
HOW TO GET INVOLVED
- If you want to weigh in during Georgia’s current legislative session, you can find out who your state representative and senator are and contact them here.
- If a bill is in a committee, it is up to the committee chair to hold a hearing on that bill. You can search for committees and find the contact info for their chairs and members here.