Gov. Mike Dunleavy has vetoed a bill that would have required the operators of large warehouses to provide their employees with a written work quota and would have forbidden them from instituting quotas that are so high that an employee would lack time to use the bathroom.
The Alaska Legislature passed House Bill 88 this year with bipartisan support.
Rep. George Rauscher, R-Sutton, wrote the bill and said in April that it was a matter of fairness and transparency for workers. He had worked in a warehouse, he said, and the issue was personal to him.
Dunleavy vetoed the bill Aug. 29, but the veto message wasn’t published until this week.
In the message, Dunleavy said he vetoed HB 88 “because it creates excessive regulation of state businesses, thereby thwarting business development and economic opportunities in Alaska.”
Through a spokesperson, the governor’s office declined additional comment.
HB 88 would have been limited to warehouses that employ 100 or more people, and there are only a handful in the state, but the number is growing, particularly in the vicinity of Anchorage Ted Stevens International Airport, one of the world’s busiest air cargo terminals.
Also this year, Amazon Inc. opened a warehouse facility with more than 100 people in Anchorage to serve the company’s e-commerce business in Alaska.
That company has previously been criticized for setting work quotas so high that employees felt forced to go to the bathroom in bottles. The company has since revised those quotas.
By phone on Thursday, Rauscher seemed resigned to Dunleavy’s decision.
“The governor can do what he wants, right?” Rauscher said. “I guess I have to find out if there’s another way to make something similar happen. I think that’s what you do with any bill that doesn’t make it.”
The Alaska Legislature could seek to override the veto of HB 88 and other bills if they call a special session, but Rauscher and multiple other lawmakers say they don’t believe there’s an appetite to do that.
The veto was Dunleavy’s seventh for a policy bill in 2024 and 12th since being elected in 2018. He has since signed two other vetoes, for a total of 14 during his two terms in office. Those figures do not include his annual budget vetoes.
Since Dunleavy took office, legislators have never overridden one of his vetoes.
In a written statement published on social media Thursday, Teamsters Local 959 said it was disappointed by the governor’s veto.
The union, one of the state’s largest, said it will continue to advocate for workers’ rights.
• James Brooks is a longtime Alaska reporter, having previously worked at the Anchorage Daily News, Juneau Empire, Kodiak Mirror and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. This article originally appeared online at alaskabeacon.com. Alaska Beacon, an affiliate of States Newsroom, is an independent, nonpartisan news organization focused on connecting Alaskans to their state government.
