‘Tis the season for better worker protection | Opinion

By Donald Norcross
The holidays are a busy time of year for all of us. However, it’s especially busy for our holiday workforce, the men and women who work around the clock to make sure our packages — gifts, holiday decorations and seasonal treats — arrive on time.
Tomorrow is Cyber Monday, the most popular day of the year for e-commerce, due to the large amount of online sales that occur on this day. This is an exciting day for many online consumers, but we can’t forget about the workers who make this day possible. While some companies show a strong commitment to warehouse workplace safety, others continuously put workers at risk by neglecting to enforce fair labor practices.
The result is a stark spike in injuries during these major sales events. Last year, during the weeks of Amazon Prime Day and Cyber Monday, a labor organizing coalition reported more than 1,000 serious injuries a week across all Amazon warehouse facilities. For reference, that’s about 300 more injuries than the company reported during an average week in 2023. A recent study also found that more than half of Amazon employees report their production rate makes it hard for them to use the bathroom at least some of the time.
This is America. We know we can ensure that families receive their holiday gifts on time and keep our warehouse workers safe. A simple solution is to require companies with large warehouses to disclose production quotas to workers and ban those that interfere with health and safety.
We can help in this goal by requiring companies to be transparent with these performance metrics. The problem is that these quotas can measure anything from how many items a worker scans over a given period of time, to recording how frequently or how long an employee uses a “time-off task.” These tasks can include using the restroom, or addressing circumstances outside the worker’s control, such as a machine malfunction.
Some companies don’t even tell workers what their expected “time off task” limit is before they are held accountable for not meeting them and other measurements. This often leads to a climate of fear in which workers are pressured to push their bodies to the breaking point—or risk losing their jobs.
The Warehouse Worker Protection Act, (H. R. 8639), which I introduced for the 2023-2024 session in June, addresses this problem head on by requiring companies to provide written descriptions of quotas and actions that might result from failure to meet them. The bill also bans companies from establishing quotas that prevent workers from eating meals, taking breaks or using bathroom facilities. My bipartisan cosponsors for the bill include Rep. Chris Smith, R-4th Dist., as well as Reps. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.
As a former electrician, I know first hand what it is like to lose a co-worker on the job, and I want to do everything in my power to prevent that from happening. In 2022, three Amazon warehouse workers in New Jersey tragically died on the job within weeks of each other. This resulted in the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) launching an investigation into their employer’s workplace standards. Additionally, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York is investigating workplace safety and related issues at Amazon warehouses.
No one should risk their life to deliver a package, and by putting better warehouse workplace standards in place we can prevent another tragedy from happening. The season of giving would not be complete without ensuring Santa’s helpers are safe, and it is long past time Congress took steps to make that a reality.
U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, a Democrat, represents the First Congressional District in South Jersey. HR-8639 has been assigned to the House Education and Workforce Committee, but no further action has been taken on it.
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