Does a company worth hundreds of billions of dollars rate anything less than six digits?
On Monday, Washington State's department of labor and industries cited Amazon for unsafe labor practices at one of its fulfillment centers. The department has cited Amazon for similar violations at other plants before, so it says it's clear that the company is aware of the issues.
The punishment? Within 60 days, Amazon has to submit a written plan for how it will make changes to prevent injuries. It has been fined. Of $60,000. Total.
It seems like a laughable disparity between the size of the violator and the penalty amount is indicative of the power that Big Tech companies have over the regulators of their industry.
Kenneth Dau-Schmidt, an Indiana University professor of labor and employment law, said that the enforcement of significant penalties is an important part of safety enforcement.
Amazon is currently worth $400 billion. Its worth climbed to over $1 trillion in the year 2018, thanks to the stock value. It is safe to say that Amazon is worth hundreds of billions.
What is $60,000 to a $300 billion corporation? Is a fine likely to have an impact when it is less than a percent of a company's value? A number that goes to zero several times over.
Louis Hyman, a labor relations, law, and history professor at Cornell University, said that fines are not going to make any corporation change their practices.
The $60,000 is supposed to represent the seriousness of Amazon's repeated violations in the eyes of the state. The number of factors that go into calculating fines, including the number of employees, safety history, how serious the violation is, and so on, are explained by the Washington department of labor representative.
The state knows the fight is not over.
Whether that dollar amount is enough motivation to get them to make changes is something we can't control.
Amazon is challenging the citation.
We disagree with L&I's claims and don't believe they are supported by the facts, according to an Amazon spokeswoman.
Experts think that most citations will likely be settled because of Amazon's stance and financial resources. Labor laws have not kept up with the growth of corporations. The Occupational Safety and Health Act was passed in 1970. The law is out of step with the realities of the present because there has not been much change to the statute in the last half century.
TheOSHA standards are based on 1970s technology and industrial safety practices.
Corporations factor fines into running their businesses because of the regulatory power of bureaucratic government institutions. According to a database compiled by Good Jobs First, Amazon has faced 74 safety-related labor offenses, with fines of over $3.25 million. The Washington fine of $60,000 is significantly higher than usual because the individual fines were between $5,000 and $30,000 each.
Amazon has a factory injury rate that is nearly double the industry average, but it doesn't relax the productivity quota.
The laws we have take too long to enforce, and even when they are enforced, they are just the cost of doing business.
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