A Dec. 8 report lambasting Amazon’s labor practices has already spurred one Minnesota lawmaker to take action.

Last week, the National Employment Law Project (NELP) released a report showing high rates of injury and turnover at Amazon’s Minnesota facilities compared to other warehouse operations in the state. The New York City-based research group produced the report in partnership with the Awood Center, a Minneapolis-based East African advocacy group.

On Monday, Awood held a virtual press conference for Amazon employees to share their experiences working in the company’s Minnesota warehouses. Minnesota House rep. Emma Greenman, a DFL lawmaker elected to the Legislature in 2020, also sat in on the call and unveiled plans to introduce legislation aimed at protecting workers.

“The Legislature needs to take a closer look at the human cost of Amazon’s management practices and these working conditions,” Greenman said on the call.

Her proposal would require Amazon and other companies to disclose production metrics used to discipline employees. That could include any shift quotas or other daily work requirements. Greenman said she’s working on a bill now and aims to introduce it in January when the Minnesota Legislature returns for its next session.

During the Monday conference call, a handful of Amazon workers described a work culture that prioritizes speed and productivity over safety. Speaking through a Somali translator, Amazon warehouse worker Fardowso Yusuf said that she had been written up two times for failing to meet productivity quotas. She noted that the company’s requirements weren’t always clear. “I thought that I had reached the rate that I was supposed to reach, and they told me that I did not,” Yusuf said.

All the employees on the call said they faced tremendous pressure to meet quotas, sometimes at risk to their own safety. Dad Ali, another Amazon worker, said he missed pay for several weeks after getting injured on the job. “Are we horses or are we humans?” Ali said, also speaking through a translator.

Citing Amazon’s own records, NELP’s report said that injury rates at Amazon’s Minnesota facilities surpassed those at other warehouses in the state. According to the report, Amazon’s Minnesota operations logged an injury rate of 11.1 cases annually for every 100 workers. That works out to about one injury for every nine workers in a year. The research group said that rate is “more than double the rate at non-Amazon Minnesota warehouses and more than four times the average rate for all private industries in Minnesota.”

The report suggested that productivity quotas were forcing employees to work at unsafe speeds.

“Given the poor working conditions, what is also troubling is the degree to which Amazon disproportionately relies on Black workers, including many east African workers,” said Irene Tung, one of the authors on the NELP report.

Tung conceded that injury rates are “high across the country at Amazon facilities.” She pointed to a December 2019 study on working conditions at the company’s warehouses around the U.S. But she maintained that “the Minnesota rates are actually on the high side even compared to other Amazon warehouses across the country.”

Rep. Greenman said she plans to hold hearings in the Minnesota House to give current and former Amazon employees a chance to share their testimony with other lawmakers. “We can dig into this data,” she said.

Her proposal is also intended, in part, to ensure that Amazon and other companies “aren’t skirting laws we already have.”

“Workers should know what they could be disciplined for and held accountable for,” Greenman said. “I don’t think this is a partisan issue.”

Greenman’s proposal bears some similarity to recent legislation passed in California. In September, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill that “establishes new standards for companies to make clear to warehouse staff what their production quotas are,” according to NPR.

In an email, an Amazon spokesperson maintained that the NELP report “ignores the perspectives of the vast majority of our employees in Minnesota, who tell us they’re proud to work at Amazon and feel supported in their roles.” The spokesperson noted that safety is a consideration when setting worker expectations. “With our front-line workforce, performance targets are determined based on actual employee performance over a period of time,” the spokesperson said. “When setting those targets, we consider time in role, experience, and the safety and well-being of our employees.”

Amazon’s footprint in Minnesota is growing, but it didn’t set up shop here until 2016, when the company opened its Shakopee facility. In the years that followed, the company set up other facilities in Brooklyn Center and Lakeville. Amazon also plans to open a new facility in Woodbury.

The Shakopee facility is no stranger to controversy. In October 2020, two dozen workers walked off the job in support of an employee they said was fired unfairly.

Nimo Omar, co-founder of the Awood Center, meanwhile, has been in the national spotlight for her advocacy work at the Shakopee center.