Senator takes aim at Amazon’s labor practices with federal quota bill [Video]

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., on Thursday introduced new legislation to regulate the use of productivity quotas by warehouse employers such as Amazon, a tool critics have said encourages employees to work faster and without frequent breaks, putting them at higher risk of injury.

The bill, called the Warehouse Worker Protection Act, is the first attempt to police warehouse quotas at the federal level. It comes after similar laws have passed in multiple states, including California, New York, Washington and Minnesota.

The legislation would require employers to be more transparent about workplace quotas and potential disciplinary consequences. Employers would also need to provide workers with at least two business days’ notice of any changes to quotas or workplace surveillance.

It also seeks to ban companies from using “harmful quotas” like “time off task,” an oft-scrutinized metric used by Amazon to measure the time a worker isn’t scanning items while on the clock. …