California passes bill addressing speed quotas for warehouse workers

Background: Warehouse jobs have ballooned in recent years, with Amazon leading the charge with over 950,000 workers across the United States — rising to the place of the second-largest employer in the country.

• Amazon has drawn scrutiny for such demands, even as the productivity metric is being adopted across the industry, per NPR.
• Amazon warehouses rack up twice the rate of injuries compared to the industry average, according to an investigation by Reveal.

Details: The bill creates pathways to appeal to employers if workers can't safely meet quotas or take breaks they are entitled to.

• Gov. Gavin Newsom has not indicated whether he'll sign the bill, per NPR.

What they're saying: "It's the first step in changing working conditions in the warehouse," Veena Dubal, a labor law and technology expert, told NPR.

• The other side: "[Do] we need this broad, sweeping legislation [that] impacts every aspect of the supply chain in California? I don't think so," Rachel Michelin, head of the California Retailers Association, told NPR.