John,
Amazon’s workplace surveillance systems break human bodies and minds.
Demand Congress protect Amazon workers from abusive surveillance practices.
With nearly double the injury rate of other companies in the same sector, Amazon facilities use surveillance systems that force people to work at a punishing pace.1 In fact, reports reveal the technology giant intentionally implemented such dangerous surveillance practices, expecting to cycle through and dispose of workers. In the name of profit, Amazon churned through over 500,000 workers in 2019 alone.2 Chronic back injuries, sprains, anxiety, and other severe issues have become so normalized at Amazon that workers no longer consider them injuries.
If that’s not terrifying enough, before he stepped down, former CEO Jeff Bezos responded to Amazon’s outrageous injury rate by calling for expanded surveillance to include systems that would allow Amazon to control each worker’s muscle groups on a daily basis.3
Take action to stop Amazon’s dangerous workplace surveillance.
It’s not just warehouse workers being harmed by Amazon’s workplace surveillance dragnet. Amazon installed artificially intelligent cameras in its delivery vans to record drivers’ faces and body movements. Drivers concerned with alerts from cameras will be more focused on the surveillance cam than the road.4
TAKE ACTION
It doesn’t stop there. A damning report revealed that Amazon even has remote customer service workers install AI powered cameras in their bedrooms.5 Other reporting discloses Amazon’s plan to implement a “behavioral” biometric program to surveil its customer service workers.6
This has to stop now. Senators Warren, Markey, and other members of Congress have jump-started action to hold Amazon accountable.7,8 We just need one of them to put forth legislation to end this dangerous workplace surveillance and hold a hearing to investigate Amazon’s intentionally dangerous treatment of workers. But it’s going to take ongoing grassroots pressure to get them to do so.
Will you help protect Amazon workers and stop this invasive workplace surveillance?
For a surveillance-free future,
Ayele, Fight for the Future
Footnotes:
1. Reveal. https://www.revealnews.org/article/how-amazon-hid-its-safety-crisis/
2. New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/15/us/amazon-workers.html
3. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/z3xeba/amazons-new-algorithm-will-set-workers-schedules-according-to-muscle-use
4. Thomson Reuters Foundation. https://news.trust.org/item/20210205132207-c0mz7/
5. NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/big-tech-call-center-workers-face-pressure-accept-home-surveillance-n1276227
6. VICE. https://www.vice.com/en/article/dyvejq/amazon-monitor-employees-keyboard-mouse
7. Office of Senator Edward J. Markey. https://www.markey.senate.gov/news/press-releases/warren-markey-kennedy-release-amazon-response-to-their-inquiries-about-high-rate-of-serious-injuries-among-warehouse-workers
8. Office of Senator Sherrod Brown. https://www.brown.senate.gov/newsroom/press/release/brown-wyden-blast-amazon-thwart-union-organizing-end-anti-worker-policies
Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.
