June 18 (Reuters) - Amazon.com ( AMZN ) has been fined

$5.9 million by a California labor regulator who says the online

retail giant failed to properly inform workers of productivity

quotas at two warehouses, including one where some workers are

trying to unionize.

The office of California Labor Commissioner Lilia

Garcia-Brower announced the fines, which were issued in May, on

Tuesday.

A 2022 California law requires employers to provide written

descriptions of quotas to workers if they can be disciplined for

failing to complete jobs at a specified speed. The commissioner

said Amazon ( AMZN ) violated that law nearly 60,000 times in a

five-month period ending in March at massive warehouses in

Moreno Valley and Redlands, outside of Los Angeles.

Amazon ( AMZN ) spokesperson Maureen Lynch Vogel said the company is

appealing the citations and denied that warehouse workers have

fixed quotas.

"At Amazon ( AMZN ), individual performance is evaluated over a long

period of time, in relation to how the entire site's team is

performing. Employees can - and are encouraged to - review their

performance whenever they wish," Lynch Vogel said in a

statement.

Criticisms of Amazon's ( AMZN ) alleged quota system have been a

focal point of a nationwide campaign to unionize its warehouses.

Workers at a New York City warehouse voted to join a union in

2022, while others at two facilities in New York and Alabama

have since spurned unions.

A union in 2022 filed a petition to hold an election at the

Moreno Valley warehouse, known as ONT8, which was later

withdrawn amid allegations of illegal union-busting activity by

Amazon ( AMZN ). An administrative judge is scheduled to hold a hearing

on those claims, which Amazon ( AMZN ) has denied, in August.

Garcia-Brower in a statement said Amazon's ( AMZN ) quota system is

exactly what the California law was designed to prevent.

"Undisclosed quotas expose workers to increased pressure to

work faster and can lead to higher injury rates and other

violations by forcing workers to skip breaks," she said.

Congress is considering a Democratic-backed bill that would

largely mirror the California law by requiring written notice of

quotas and prohibiting quotas that prevent workers from taking

breaks or using bathrooms.

Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, one of the bill's

sponsors, said the fines against Amazon ( AMZN ) announced on Tuesday

highlighted the need to crack down on "punishing" quota systems.

"We need more than a patchwork of state laws," Markey said

in a statement.