With brief, occasional, italicized and sometimes gratuitous commentary…
• The Hartford Courant reports that "Connecticut legislation aimed at regulating Amazon’s use of quotas and biometric surveillance to keep warehouse workers 'on task' drew dramatic testimony this week from labor and silence from Amazon.
"Testifying anonymously by video, one worker described working for 'the app,' an Amazon program that clocks them into highly automated warehouses, monitors the speed of their work, clocks them out and, on occasion, fires them.
"Using the bathroom in Amazon’s massive fulfillment center requires a 10-minute round trip, a period marked as 'time off task' by his electronic minder, said John Doe. His quota remains the same: packing 160 boxes an hour."
The story says that the proposed legislation "would make Connecticut at least the third state after California and New York to require transparency and set limits on quotas in warehouses. It would require employers to provide 'a written description of each quota the employee is subject to, including any potential adverse employment action that may result from a failure to meet such quota.'
"Under the bill, no employee could be required to meet any quota that interferes with meal periods or bathroom breaks, including a 'reasonable time' to reach bathroom facilities."
Yet another example of how Amazon has lost control of the narrative.