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Ford Fined by Safety Agency Over Defective Rearview Camera Recalls

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The regulator faulted the automaker for not recalling cars with defective rearview cameras quickly enough and for providing incomplete and inaccurate information.Ford Motor will pay a fine of up to $165 million for not recalling cars with defective rearview cameras in a timely manner, the federal government’s main auto safety agency said on Thursday.The agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, said Ford also had failed to provide accurate and complete information about the defect and recall. If Ford is required to pay the full sum, it will be the second-largest fine ever issued by the regulator. The largest fine, a $200 million penalty in 2015, was levied against Takata, a Japanese company that made defective airbag inflaters that resulted in a huge, global recall.The safety agency said a defective rearview camera could increase the risk of a crash.“Timely and accurate recalls are critical to keeping everyone safe on our roads,” the agency’s deputy administrator, Sophie Shulman, said in a statement. “When manufacturers fail to prioritize the safety of the American public and meet their obligations under federal law, NHTSA will hold them accountable.”Under a consent decree between the agency and Ford, the automaker is required to pay $65 million. A second sum of $55 million will be deferred and can be partly or completely reversed if Ford makes changes to improve its ability to identify defects and alert the safety agency quickly.Ford also agreed to spend $45 million to improve its ability to analyze data, create a new means of sharing information and documents with the safety agency, and set up a base to test rearview camera components.“We appreciate the opportunity to resolve this matter with NHTSA and remain committed to continuously improving safety and compliance at Ford,” the automaker said in a statement. “Wide-ranging enhancements are already underway with more to come, including advanced data analytics, a new in-house testing facility, among other capabilities.”According to a summary of the safety agency’s investigation, the defect was related to a faulty circuit board that caused rearview cameras in certain models to stop working. The agency received 15 complaints about the defect but did not identify any injuries or fatalities caused by it.Ford first identified the defect in 2020 and issued a recall for more than 620,000 vehicles, largely from the 2020 model year, including F-Series pickups, Mustangs and several sport utility vehicles. A year later, the safety agency opened an investigation to determine if Ford had accurately identified and reported all of the vehicles that could have been affected by the camera defect.Ford expanded the recall in 2023 and again this year. Separately, Ford recalled a different set of rearview cameras in 2023 at a cost of $270 million. More

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    Amazon Is Fined Nearly $6 Million Over Warehouse Work Quotas

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    California officials cited failures to disclose productivity requirements at two locations. The company said it would appeal.A California labor regulator said on Tuesday that it had fined Amazon nearly $6 million for thousands of violations of a safety law that took effect in 2022.The measure, known as the Warehouse Quotas Law, lets employees request written explanations of any productivity quotas that apply to them, as well as explanations of any discipline they may face in failing to meet the quotas.The state labor commissioner’s office said Amazon violated the law more than 59,000 times at two Southern California warehouses between October and March.The system that Amazon used in the two warehouses “is exactly the kind of system that the Warehouse Quotas Law was put in place to prevent,” the labor commissioner, Lilia García-Brower, said in a statement.An Amazon spokeswoman said in a statement that the company had appealed the penalties and denied that the company used “fixed quotas.” The spokeswoman, Maureen Lynch Vogel, said that “individual performance is evaluated over a long period of time, in relation to how the entire site’s team is performing,” and that workers can “review their performance whenever they wish.”The California law also proscribes quotas that interfere with employees’ ability to take state-mandated breaks or use the bathroom, or that prevent employers from following state health and safety laws.Experts have said the law was among the first in the country to regulate warehouse quotas that are monitored by algorithms and to require employers to make the quotas transparent to workers. The penalties announced on Tuesday are the largest issued under the law.The labor commissioner’s office said its investigation had been assisted by a labor advocacy group, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, which issued a statement quoting a worker at one of the penalized Amazon facilities who described significant pressure to hit quotas.“If you don’t scan enough items you will get written up,” said the worker, Carrie Stone. “This happened to me. I got written up for not making rate. They said I missed by one point, but I didn’t even know what the target was.”Other Amazon workers raised similar concerns while the Legislature debated the bill in 2021, and studies by labor advocacy groups have shown that Amazon has significantly higher rates of serious injury than other warehouse employers, like Walmart.The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Amazon several times in recent years for exposing workers to ergonomic injuries and over record-keeping for such injuries, and the Justice Department is investigating whether the company made false representations about its safety record when applying for loans.Amazon has cited hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of investments in safety improvements in recent years, including more than $300 million in 2021.Other states, like New York and Washington, have since enacted similar laws, and Senator Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, introduced a federal version last month. More

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    Chipotle Agrees to Pay Over $20 Million to Settle New York City Workplace Case

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    New York City said Tuesday that it had reached a settlement potentially worth more than $20 million with the fast-food chain Chipotle Mexican Grill over violations of worker protection laws, the largest settlement of its kind in the city’s history.The action, affecting about 13,000 workers, sends a message “that we won’t stand by when workers’ rights are violated,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement.The city said the settlement covered violations of scheduling and sick leave laws from late November 2017 to late April of this year. Under the settlement, hourly employees of Chipotle in New York City will receive $50 for each week that they worked during that period. Employees who left the company before April 30 will have to file a claim to receive their compensation.The Fair Workweek Law enacted by the city in 2017 requires fast-food employers to provide workers with their schedules at least two weeks in advance or pay a bonus for the shifts.The employers must also give workers at least 11 hours off between shifts on consecutive days or get written consent and pay them an extra $100. And the employers must offer workers more shifts before hiring additional employees, to make it easier for them to earn a sustainable income.Under a separate city law, large employers like Chipotle must provide up to 56 hours of paid sick leave per year.The city accused Chipotle of violating all these policies.“We’re pleased to be able to resolve these issues,” Scott Boatwright, the company’s chief restaurant officer, said in a statement. Mr. Boatwright added that the company had carried out a number of changes to ensure compliance with the law, such as new time-keeping technology, and that Chipotle looked forward to “continuing to promote the goals of predictable scheduling and access to work hours for those who want them.”The city filed an initial legal complaint in the case, involving a handful of Chipotle stores, in September 2019, then expanded the case last year to include locations across the city. At the time, the city said the company owed workers over $150 million for the scheduling violations alone. Advocates for the workers said civil penalties could far exceed that amount.In addition to as much as $20 million in compensation, Chipotle will pay $1 million in civil penalties. A city spokeswoman said the settlement was the fastest way to win relief for workers.The city said in its statement that it had closed more than 220 investigations and obtained nearly $3.4 million in fines and restitution under the scheduling law, and that it had closed more than 2,300 investigations and obtained nearly $17 million in fines and restitution under the sick leave law. Neither figure includes the settlement announced Tuesday.The city spokeswoman said the city had filed more than 135 formal complaints under the two laws, and that many employers settle before the city can file a case.Chipotle faces pressure over its labor practice on other fronts. Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, which helped prompt the investigation at Chipotle by filing initial complaints in the case, is seeking to unionize Chipotle workers in the city.Chipotle employees at stores in Maine and Michigan have filed petitions for union elections. The Maine store has been closed, a move that the employees assert was retaliation for the organizing effort. Chipotle has said the closing was a result of staffing issues and had “nothing to do with union activity.” More