Amazon changes course and supports federal legislation by pledging to no longer screen some of its employees
Amazon Inc has declared Tuesday that he was backing a US bill to legalize cannabis federally, and that he would drop weed testing requirements for some recruitments.
In an article by blog published Tuesday, Amazon consumer boss Dave Clark said the company supports the Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, reintroduced to the House of Representatives at the end of last month. The MORE law aims to decriminalize cannabis at the federal level, clear criminal records and invest in affected communities.
Amazon will no longer verify the marijuana use of its job applicants for all positions that are not regulated by the Department of Transportation, Clark added. While many states in the United States have legalized the use of marijuana, employers have so far largely refused to work with the industry, with cannabis still a federally classified substance.
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“In the past, like many employers, we have disqualified people from working at Amazon if they tested positive for marijuana use,” Clark said. “However, given the evolution of state laws across the United States, we have changed course. “
Amazon was hit by a class action lawsuit proposal, which claimed the company was violating a New York City law by testing applicants for jobs at local marijuana facilities, according to a Westlaw report. However, the company does not allow the sale of marijuana on its platform. Amazon also said it was making changes to its worker productivity tracker, “Time off Task”.
Amazon tracks the productivity rates of its warehouse workers, recording the number of packages they pick up, pack and put away each hour. If workers take too long a break from reading packages, Amazon’s internal systems log it as an unfulfilled task and generate a warning, which can then lead to layoffs.
“Starting today, we are averaging the free time over a longer period to ensure there is more signal and less noise, which reinforces the original intent of the program,” said Mr. Clark said.
In his last letter to shareholders in April, outgoing CEO Jeff Bezos asserted that Amazon’s performance targets were not unreasonable. He recognized, however, that Amazon needed a “better view of employee success” and pledged to make the company “the best employer on the planet and the safest workplace on the planet. “.
