LIFE IN THE AMAZON
PANOPTICON:
AN INTERNATIONAL SURVEY
OF AMAZON WORKERS
JANUARY 2023
division
name
2
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 3
HOW DOES AMAZON MONITOR ITS WORKERS? 6
UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS 7
“It’s all about numbers” 8
IMPACTING HEALTH 10
“Productivity over safety” 13
THE MENTAL TOLL 15
“One bad day” 18
“Not even a moment to breathe” 19
customer service workers face intense pressure
A LACK OF TRANSPARENCY
21
“Computers vs. humans” 22
Going in circles: 24
Amazon drivers deal with irrational routes
AN ATMOSPHERE OF FEAR 25
CONCLUSIONS 29
This report has been produced by Jarrow Insights for UNI Global Union
3
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
Figure 1:
Survey responses by
Role and Country
INTRODUCTION
In 2021, UNI Global Union released its report on “The Amazon Panopticon”, describing in detail
the elaborate surveillance system that Amazon uses to monitor its employees at all levels of the
company’s operations, from cameras in warehouses, to GPS-tracking driver apps, to Ring doorbells.
This year, UNI commissioned an international survey of Amazon workers, conducted by Jarrow
Insights, focused specifically on studying the concrete human eects that this technological
surveillance apparatus has on the people who experience it.
168
248
1614
774
284
269
227
171
168
100
35
Oce workers
Drivers
Warehouse workers
United States
United Kingdom
Italy
France
Germany
Poland
Spain
Australia
Key
Key
Responses by Role and Country
4
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
The survey was distributed to likely Amazon workers through digital advertising on social media
platforms, as well as through outreach to Amazon worker organizations. It was directed at warehouse
workers, delivery drivers, and office workers in the tech and customer service areas.
With over 2000 responses from self-identified Amazon workers from 8 countries, this is the largest
independent survey of Amazon workers ever conducted. S
tudying the responses together, a clear
picture emerges across countries and roles. The majority of workers surveyed expressed their belief
that Amazon’s monitoring of their work performance is excessive and opaque, that its expectations
are unrealistic, and that striving to meet these unrealistic expectations has negative eects on their
physical health and, even more acutely, their mental health.
As some respondents noted, a company as sprawling as
Amazon needs technological systems in place to coordinate
workers and manage inventory, logistics, and workflows.
In the following pages, we will explore what Amazon
workers told us about Amazon’s monitoring systems point
by point, covering productivity expectations, health eects,
transparency, and accountability. The structure of the
report links the quantitative results of the survey to relevant
selections from the more than 20,000 words of testimony
shared by workers, in order to give context to the numbers.
We will conclude with a summary of the results to link the
findings presented here to existing and urgent advocacy for
the rights and well-being of Amazon workers.
The system workers
describe, however, goes
far beyond these practical
considerations, and
instead seems intentionally
designed to generate a
constant sense of pressure
and inadequacy. As one
worker succinctly put it:
“They set you up for
failure”.
Australia
Italy
USA
UK
Poland
Germany
France
Spain
774
Responses
284
Responses
269
Responses
100
Responses
35
Responses
227
Responses
171
Responses
168
Responses
5
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“ THERE IS
ABSOLUTELY NO
REASON THAT A
CAMERA SHOULD
BE POINTING
DIRECTLY AT
ME ALL DAY.”
6
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
HOW DOES AMAZON
MONITOR ITS WORKERS?
Amazon monitors its workers for many reasons, using a variety of devices across various roles.
Monitoring can help direct workers to where the company needs them, enforce safety protocols,
and guard against theft. Perhaps most pervasively, though, advanced monitoring technology allows
Amazon to closely track worker productivity at an individual level.
Respondents were asked to identify what devices they felt specifically were used to monitor their
performance on the job. The following chart shows the top 3 most referenced devices among
warehouse workers, delivery drivers, and oce workers.
Warehouse workers Delivery drivers Oce workers
71.4% 88.7%
Handscanners
“They count time on breaks
to the very second by means
of handscanners at the work
station.”
- US warehouse worker
Company apps
“If your Mentor app score is low
they threaten to sanction you.”
-Spanish delivery driver
55.3%
Activity tracking software
“They monitor your down
time through the programs we
work with.”
- US customer service worker
50.8%
52.1%
Badges
“They monitor you based on
badge swipes. But forget to add
time spent waiting on stations,
walking to different floors, and
machine problems.”
- US warehouse worker
GPS Devices
“The route is entirely visible to
the DSP
1
. They can see how
long we stop at each point, can
see if we have finished the tour
and send us elsewhere, and
can also send us warnings in
case of excessive pause.”
- French delivery driver
33.9%
Chime (Amazon’s internal
communications program)
“Going ‘inactive’ on chime sent
my manager on a frenzy.”
- US customer service worker
49.1% 38.3%
Work station screens
“When they remind you about
rules on the screen, I feel the
pressure regarding possible
errors or slowness.”
- Italian warehouse worker
In-vehicle cameras
“There is absolutely no reason
that a camera should be point-
ing directly at me all day. That is
a total and clear violation of my
right to privacy.”
- US delivery driver
32.7%
Email
“They can read all messages/
emails.”
- US tech worker
1
Amazon Delivery Service Partners (DSPs) are independent companies that Amazon contracts for last mile delivery. While technically
not owned by Amazon, DSPs lease Amazon-branded vehicles (the dark blue vans seen in many cities), and drivers often report a quasi-
employment relationship with Amazon, where the DSP acts as intermediary and manager
.
7
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
UNREALISTIC
EXPECTATIONS
“Being overworked and underpaid trying to reach nearly impossible
goals and metrics is degrading. We have to be perfect to keep our job.
”
- US delivery driver
The devices listed in the previous section allow Amazon to quantify worker productivity, and thus to
set measurable targets – commonly called “rates” in the warehouse context. The results of the survey
indicate a widespread sentiment among workers that Amazon’s targets are unreasonable. Statistically
speaking, 54.2% of Amazon workers surveyed said that Amazon’s productivity targets are either dicult
or very dicult to achieve. Only 17.9% said they were either easy or very easy to achieve. Furthermore,
in their commentary, many workers express a sense that the bar is constantly being raised.
“I’ve been working there for 5 years, It’s only gotten worse, more
and more production etc…”
- French warehouse worker
“They demand more production every day and they decrease the
number o
f employees.”
- Spanish warehouse worker
“I feel rushed to make my rate and half way through the work
week I’m exhausted.”
- US warehouse worker
Productivity monitoring is a discipline mechanism. At Amazon, failing to “make rate” carries the threat
of dismissal
2
. Amazon’s unreasonable standards mean that workers are under constant threat of
losing their jobs, playing a game they cannot win. A full 53.5% of current workers surveyed said they
fear being fired for not reaching productivity targets, while 46.2% of former workers felt it had an
impact on their leaving Amazon, whether they quit or were fired
3
.
“Rigged, no matter what you do you’re always in the wrong and never good
enough.”
- UK delivery driver
“Every stop or break is being monitored, The DSP manager later gets asked by
Amazon why certain stops took so long. However, none of this information
is ever used to actually improve conditions at work.”
- German delivery driver
2 This was confirmed in recent testimony by an Amazon ocial in the UK parliament (relevant discussion at 11:13:54)
3 Respondents were given the opportunity to specify whether they were fired or quit, but could also choose not to specify
8
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“It’s all about numbers”
Many workers testified that Amazon’s reliance on algorithms and technological monitoring
for workplace discipline leads to an excessive focus on numbers, while the complex daily
realities of the work process often get lost.
One recurring complaint, for example, had to do with the company’s strict break policy in warehouses,
which fails to account for geography, and eectively punishes workers who happen to be further
away from break rooms and bathrooms.
“Breaks are 20 mins from scan to scan, and do not include time to walk from
[your] station to [the] break room.”
- US warehouse worker
“Break times are very strict and enforced. If you are over by 2min or more,
your break time will be sent to the manager. Also break times start from when
you scan your last item, and end when you scan your first item after break,
your break doesn’t start from when you actually sit down outside etc., so you
lose a few min. from your break.”
- Australian warehouse worker
A myopic focus on numbers also leads Amazon’s system to neglect other subtle but important
idiosyncrasies, including varying rates and diculties of incoming work, as well as general problem-solving.
Aspects like these can be somewhat intangible but, as any worker who actually does the job will agree,
they are nonetheless a crucial part of the work process, and dealing with them constitutes real work.
“[They] didn’t consider work load and dierent sizes of parcels.”
- UK warehouse worker
“The computer software only counts the number
of packages shipped. It does
not allow for malfunctioning equipment, wrong box sizes, restocking your
work stations, etc.”
- US warehouse worker
“Monitoring of errors by the electronic system does not take into account
technical conditions and problems with machines.”
- Polish warehouse worker
“Many tasks that we encounter at our stations are not calculated and
therefore, sometimes, the manager believes that we are doing nothing, even
though we are working.”
- French warehouse worker
“The routing system doesn’t account for real world and real time
occurrences, setbacks, obstacles, breaks, etc.”
- US delivery driver
“ WE AREN’T
PEOPLE TO
THEM, WE
ARE ENTIRELY
REPLACEABLE
COGS IN THE
MACHINE.”
9
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
10
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
IMPACTING HEALTH
Even under what they describe as exaggerated and unrealistic expectations,
workers must try to keep up, sometimes pushing themselves and their bodies
to the limit, with consequences for their health.
Despite its use of cutting-edge technologies and state-of-the-art facilities, research has shown that
injury rates at Amazon’s warehouses are significantly higher than industry averages
4
. The results
of the survey shed light on this apparent contradiction. Worker testimony indicates that it is often
precisely this cutting-edge technology that pushes workers to work harder and faster, at the expense
of both their physical and mental health.
As can be seen clearly in Fig. 2, over half of Amazon workers surveyed believe that
Amazon’s monitoring systems have had a negative impact on their health along both dimensions,
with the impact on mental health being even more pronounced. Notably, the number of workers who
were neutral (white) and the number who disagreed (green) were both fewer for mental health than
for physical health.
4 “The Injury Machine: How Amazon’s Production System Hurts Workers”, Strategic Organizing Center, Apr. 2022, retrieved 11/27/22
Strongly
disagree
Neutral
Neutral
Strongly
agree
51.7%
57.3%
... on my physical health
... on my mental health
Question
“Amazon’s monitoring of my work performance has had a negative
impact ...
Fig 2:
Impacting health
Strongly
disagree
Strongly
agree
11
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
When it comes to physical health, the intense work pace at Amazon (set by its technological
monitoring systems) can worsen pre-existing medical issues just as it can create new ones.
“I now have consistent migraines.”
- US Tech worker
“
I got an infraction because I was having an asthma attack on the
highway and needed to reach into my bag to grab my inhaler. It logged it
as distracted driving.”
- US delivery driver
“I had two surgeries on my wrists and after returning to work I was harassed
for not reaching my targets, everyday negative feedbacks and I had to explain
why I can’t reach the targets even with doctors recommendations to not
overstrain my hands. Now I’m o work again as my carpal tunnel returned
and extended to nerve entrapment in elbow.”
- UK warehouse worker
“As a rebinner in Outbound Sort Flow, my quota was nearly physically
impossible to reach. Rebinning requires fast walking through the entire
shift to meet the minimum quota, I developed tendonitis due to suddenly
being put on Rebin/suddenly fastwalking each shift for the entire period. This
tendonitis caused me to be unable to show up, which resulted in me being
fired for Job Abandonment.”
- US warehouse worker
“Having a lot of back problems that have worsened enormously because of
them. I told them about the pain and they never took anything seriously…”
- French warehouse worker
Several workers who suer from conditions such as irritable-bowel syndrome (IBS), which require
them to spend more time in the restroom, reported frictions with the company’s infamous time-o-task
(ToT) policies, and a lack of accommodation from the company.
“Today I received a write-up for - unaccounted for idle time -
due to my IBS. I’m constantly harassed over missing work or
restroom breaks due to my illness.”
- US warehouse worker
12
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“I suer from IBS and have been written up for ‘time o task’... I am constantly
getting emails about “termination” even though my condition is both
documented, and a Federally and Amazon recognized disability.
”
- US warehouse worker
“I understand that they want to make sure everyone follows break rules but I
have a medical issue and that requires a little longer bathroom break. Most
[of] my break is waiting for a stall in the restroom.”
- US warehouse worker
Just as we saw that Amazon reduces workers’ productivity to blunt numbers, these examples
show how workers themselves are subjected to one-size-fits-all expectations, ignoring individual
dierences and needs. This can be further illustrated by several stories that workers shared
concerning Amazon’s treatment of older employees.
“I am not worried about my own performance, but Amazon does not take
health or age into account. They expect the same preformance from 65
year olds that they expect from 20 year olds. Accommodations are possible,
but not always easy to get put through. It puts the older people at risk for
permanent injury in order to simply keep their employment.”
- US warehouse worker
“They want to fire an older gentleman for not physically being able to keep up
with the work.”
- US warehouse worker
For a company so focused on growth, approaches like these might seem rational as a way to weed
out underperformers. In fact, as is well-known, Amazon has some of the highest employee turnover
rates of any major corporation. This matches up with Je Bezos’ own reported aversion to the idea of
long-term employment at Amazon
5
. The human cost of this philosophy is high. As one worker put it:
“We aren’t people to them, we are entirely replaceable cogs in the machine.”
SPOTLIGHT
65.7% of drivers in particular reported a negative impact on their physical health
stemming from productivity monitoring.
“ I feel like I’m drowning all day, causing me to drive in unsafe ways
to meet the unreasonable expectation[s],” one US driver explained.
5 Kay, Grace. “Amazon Tracks Warehouse Workers’ Every Move Because Je Bezos Thinks People Are Inherently Lazy, Report Says.”
Business Insider, 17 June 2021
13
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“Productivity over safety”
Survey respondents consistently expressed that safety comes second to productivity
at Amazon.
Like all major employers, Amazon has safety protocols intended to reduce injury rates and health
issues, in accordance with local laws. In this case, monitoring systems could be a tool to help ensure
workplace safety. This is not the situation at Amazon as revealed by the results of the survey.
Instead, as one US driver put it: “Safety standards have gone up but the high expectations have
not gone down.”
“Amazon favors productivity over safety. They won’t make safety changes
unless someone gets hurt if it’s really bad. If not they will let it happen
multiple times before they make changes. Their first goal will be to blame the
person who got hurt.”
- US warehouse worker
“The monitoring has only led to an increase in the number of deliveries and is
not really concerned about the safety of the driver.”
- Italian delivery driver
“I had a fairly serious car accident, because I didn’t dare to do an emergency
brake for fear of lowering my FICO score (e-mentor)… I’m almost afraid
to stop 5/ 10min chat with a customer (yet useful for the good image of
Amazon..) or do my business because they have geolocated trucks and the
stopping time is indicated to them. As soon as we stop they let us know .
When deer suddenly cross the road, I don’t even have the reflex to brake so
as not to penalize my FICO score once again.”
- French delivery driver
“ I GOT WRITTEN
UP THE DAY
I GOT BACK
FROM LOSING
MY SON.”
14
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
15
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
THE MENTAL TOLL
“They even had a camera in front of the bathroom door.”
- Italian warehouse worker
We have already seen that workers fear losing their jobs for failing to meet what they describe as
excessive expectations. We have also seen how meeting these excessive expectations sometimes
means pushing their bodies to unreasonable extremes. As the results in Figure 3 show, however,
workers indicate that Amazon’s monitoring has an even worse eect on their mental health. This is
true across all worker roles.
SPOTLIGHT
The disproportionate eect of surveillance on workers’ mental health was starkest in
Poland, where 66% of surveyed workers indicated a negative impact on their mental
health, compared to 54.4% who reported an impact on their physical health.
The meaning of this mental toll can be parsed out by studying workers’ subjective experiences on
the job. In one question, respondents were asked to describe in a single word the way Amazon’s
monitoring of their work performance makes them feel. In total, workers used 527 unique words and
phrases, of which 3/4 were identified as negative by a manual review. Below we present the
top 10 most frequently appearing words or short phrases in english.
Figure 3: Amazon
workers describe
the way Amazon’s
monitoring makes
them feel. Word size
is proportional to
frequency.
STRESSED,
PRESSURED,
ANXIOUS,
LIKE A SLAVE,
ROBOT,
UNTRUSTED,
LIKE A NUMBER,
PRISON, FINE,
UNCOMFORTABLE
16
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“It’s outrageous that you can work at a ridiculous pace trying to keep up
with Amazon’s demands, only for your manager to come after your shift
and point out that you accidentally scanned 2 packages out of the 2000
you handled into the wrong bag (which the system rejected anyway).”
-
German warehouse worker
“Like a slave”,
“like a number”,
“robot”
From these words, we can identify several diverse dimensions of mental strain that Amazon’s
productivity apparatus generates.
“Stressed”,
“anxious”
These expressions all point to lack of agency, as well
as a sense of dehumanization.
“The system can’t treat people like this ... we work with
robots but we aren’t robots ourselves.”
- Polish warehouse worker
“
Relentless on humans, they take us for animals.”
- French delivery driver
These words are representative of the high
percentage of respondents who fear losing their jobs,
and both bring to mind testimony about concerns over
punishment for the smallest errors.
17
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“Untrusted”,
“pressured”,
“prison”
“Fine”
These words imply a sense of subjugation – workers
express an understanding that their condition is being
imposed on them by an outside force, whether it be the
company, managers, or the algorithm itself.
This word, in contrast to the others, represents the minority of
workers who do not consider Amazon’s monitoring of their work
to be a problem.
Some such respondents indicated that they worked in oce roles,
mostly in tech, where productivity and performance was evaluated
more traditionally through feedback from human managers.
“The floor managers are constantly putting pressure on you even after you
hit the targets.”
- UK warehouse worker
“It’s just amazing that you can bust your ass sorting thousands of packages
in an allotted time frame, and no matter what your managers will still find
something to criticize.”
- German warehouse worker
“As far as I know, Amazon isn’t monitoring my work via tech tools.
My performance is tracked by my manager and my completion of projects.
But I’m a corporate employee, so I’m sure it’s dierent for warehouse or
delivery workers.”
- US Tech worker
In a sense, testimony such as this is the exception that proves the rule – the stress
and anxiety induced by excessive technological monitoring is necessarily missing
from roles where that monitoring is not employed. It should be noted that many oce
workers did express serious concerns over monitoring, particularly those working in
customer service where labor is more easily quantifiable, as we shall see later.
18
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“One bad day”
“I got written up the day I got back from losing my son.”
- US warehouse worker
The mental cost of working at Amazon, which we have seen clearly expressed by workers in both
numbers and words, can be explained in part by what appears to be a notable absence of positive
reinforcement from management, particularly in the warehouse. Workers describe a management
culture lacking in basic empathy – one that reflects the unforgiving and fundamentally non-human
algorithm that constitutes its foundation.
“When rates are reached there is nobody to come to congratulate you… On
the other hand, the one day when you’re tired and your performance is not
top, they are the fi
rst to come to you ask for a reason.”
- French warehouse worker
“Sometimes I can be a bit below the expected ra
te because It’s physically
exhausting to work at amazon, and when I tell my leader why I’m slower that
day they don’t care at all and just say to work harder.”
- Polish warehouse worker
“I got a write up for my performance without a verbal warning or coaching.
One bad day and they wrote me up for it.”
- US warehouse worker
“How can they come to ask you why you’re slow when one day
you’re worse than normal, and you’re always super good?
The smallest thing and they bite.”
- Spanish warehouse worker
19
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“Not even a moment to breathe”
- customer service workers face intense pressure
Amazon does not limit its use of surveillance to those who handle, box, and
deliver its merchandise.
The number of survey responses from customer service workers was relatively small
compared to those from warehouse workers, in part reflecting their smaller share of
Amazon’s workforce. Nonetheless, the results were striking, with 61% of customer service
workers reporting an impact on their mental health. They were also consistent, and
many of the stories shared by these workers across various countries seem to mirror the
relentless work culture we see described by warehouse workers and drivers.
“In Social Media Customer Service there is
extreme pressure to be absolutely
perfect. They monitor your breaks heavily. I have so many timers set so that
I don’t make a mistake, it makes me anxious. They monitor your down time
through the programs we work with and try to eliminate that to wring every bit
of work they can from you without increasing pay or benefits.”
- US customer service worker
“W e are constantly monitored with multiple tools by the company, between
one call and the next we don’t even have time to breathe.”
- Italian customer service worker
“Every week, before I go to work, I am consumed by stress. Customer service
work, as well as targets (quantitative, temporal and qualitative). exhaust me
mentally and make me anxious about being fired. The load of work and
incoming contacts is very large and sometimes there is not even a moment
to breathe between contacts.“
- Polish customer service worker
These stories indicate that even those working for Amazon from home can be subject to
the same pressures and excessive monitoring, so long as their work is quantifiable. This can
explain why relatively fewer self-identified tech workers identified monitoring as an issue for
them – as some shared, their work is often more objective-based, and subject to qualitative
evaluation. In contrast, the tasks of customer service workers, much like warehouse workers
in direct roles, and delivery drivers with set routes, are quite easily reduced to numbers –
calls or tickets to be resolved.
“ THEY ARE SUPER
STRICT WITH
PRODUCTION
AND PUT A LOT
OF PHYSICAL AND
PSYCHOLOGICAL
PRESSURE
ON YOU.”
20
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
21
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
A LACK OF
TRANSPARENCY
The workers surveyed agreed by large majorities: Amazon does
not clearly explain how it uses the data it collects from them on the
job at all.
We have seen how unrealistic expectations make some workers feel pressured and anxious, but
others expressed sentiments more related to their sense of personal privacy, feeling uncomfortable,
spied on, and even violated. In this vein, 58.8% of workers stated that Amazon’s monitoring of their
productivity is excessive.
“I used to work at an Amazon depot... We were never told that we were
monitored, until one day we had to take out all the yellow bags (used to store
parcels in & given to deliver drivers) as the cameras were mistaking them for
our yellow hi-vis jackets and sending out warnings thinking that people were
standing around & not being productive. I knew we were tracked through the
handheld devices, but not through the security cameras. That just felt like
an invasion of my privacy.”
- UK warehouse worker
“In Customer Service we are constantly monitored second by second, in
whatever we do, with no respect for the working privacy provided by the
CCNL TLC
6
.”
- Italian customer service worker
6 National collective work contract for telecommunications workers in Italy. More information can be found here, retrieved 11/28/22
58.2%
Question
How clearly has Amazon explained how it will use the data it collects
from monitoring you on the job?
Figure 4: Amazon does
not clearly explain the
way it uses worker data.
Very
clearly
Neutral Not clearly
at all
22
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
Amazon’s algorithms are not static. They evolve and “learn” based on the data they receive from the
monitoring of workers. This means that workers are not just the subjects of the surveillance apparatus,
but also, in a way, its teachers. Even so, they receive no insight into how their own lessons are
implemented, much less a say in the matter.
“They didn’t tell us what production we had to achieve, or what you actually
did achieve. I was always told that I was well above average, but they never
clarified anything. They are super strict with production and put a lot of
physical and psychological pressure on you.”
- Spanish warehouse worker
“Logistics for selecting paths for pick are abstract, there is no logic at all.
If someone better coordinated this process, it would be easier to achieve
the goal.”
- Polish warehouse worker
Computers vs. humans
“An algorithm should not be in command.”
- Italian delivery driver
Worker testimony describes a system where the first line of productivity monitoring has been
outsourced almost completely to algorithms, and away from human managers. This leads to a
situation where workers experience a near constant fear of arbitrary punishment meted out by an
inflexible, and often imperfectly functioning, computer system.
“All of my requests, questions, concerns are always answered via email by an
automatic response and rarely ever a human being. E.g. was unable to make
a block because I was flooded in and could not leave my suburb. Amazon
responded with an automated response. One that didn’t answer my questions
or concerns at all.”
- Australian delivery driver
“A coworker’s handheld device was acting up during picking stage and kept
locking up and freezing while he continued to pick the bags for delivery. Due
to all the crashing the ai marked him for tot and management found him and
accused him of not working. Only to be told he was working the entire time.”
- US warehouse worker
It is not just rank-and-file workers that are subject to algorithmic management. Several respondents
who self-identified as managers expressed a sense of frustration and powerlessness in the face of
inhuman systems whose instructions they feel obliged to carry out.
23
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
“I was the leader of a warehouse, I monitored the results of others as well as
mine. Results are very inaccurate and underestimated. Employees seem to
be working on a level but just an hour or two delay is enough for the whole
result to go below required.”
- Polish warehouse manager
“I am a manager at amazon who uses tracking software daily, Amazon tracks
an employee’s every scan down to the second and automatically generates
reports for time o task which the manager is forced to act on.”
- US warehouse manager
“As a former manager Amazon used Connections questions to grade us.
Managers are not labor tracked but instead reviewed by the people we have
to labor track (hourly workers). It is a double edged sword because the
computer system can write up an employee for something we did not
know about, but the the employee can give low scores daily to the manager
for the write up.”
- US warehouse manager
“Forced to monitor track and question associates about their inferred time.”
- US warehouse manager
“If one of my subordinates is not performing as expected, I have to
go see him very quickly to understand why he is not performing at the
expected rate.”
- French warehouse manager
Workers experience the other side of this equation forcefully. Dozens of respondents specifically
highlighted the way managers often appear to check in on workers if they “go idle” for even a few
minutes. These experiences can often be humiliating.
“I was written up for having a low rate. The rate was 30. My rate was at 26. I
was pulled aside only for the PA to speak extremely loudly anyway. Defeating
the purpose of stepping away from other associates.”
- US warehouse worker
“We had a 30-minute break on the delivery route, but I normally used to
stop several times for a few minutes. One day when I did the opposite -
stopped for my entire break - they called me from the oce to see what was
happening.”
- Spanish delivery driver
24
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
Going in circles:
Amazon drivers deal with irrational routes
When Amazon’s algorithmic routing systems defy logic, the pressure is on drivers to
do the impossible on the clock.
Ideally, some technological advances can not only reduce human eort, but also deliver better
results. Algorithmically-powered routing would appear to be a perfect opportunity for this. In
theory, a computer should be able to calculate “optimal” delivery routes in a fraction of the time
of humans. In practice, Amazon delivery drivers often find themselves forced to follow routes
that no human would draw - for good reason.
“the app draws delivery routes that are physically impossible to follow; because
of the amount of work without a break to eat and because of the way they are
designed, such as, for example, telling you to drive the van through a street where
it is prohibited to enter because it is pedestrianized, or indicating double stops in
apartment buildings that do not have an elevator, so you have to climb stairs to the
door of the homes dozens of times…”
- Spanish delivery driver
“The routes we’re given aren’t organized well on the road… My biggest gripe is the
flex app constantly having us going in circles out on the road making us look like
we’re idiots who don’t know where they’re going.”
- US delivery driver
There are some ways that Amazon’s reliance on algorithmic routing does “work” for the
company, however. Several drivers noted a feature of the system where multiple nearby
delivery locations are grouped into a single stop — an error that makes any real productivity
accounting false, but which is useful for pressuring drivers to work harder and faster.
“Some of the stops started grouping up on the itinerary day after day and the
systems started counting those destinations as one stop instead of [the] number of
stops they really were. You would have multiple houses grouped up as one which
would cause the system to inaccurately say we have an X amount of stops when
really there would be 20, 30, 40, maybe 50 more stops on our routes that aren’t
accounted for thus making Amazon push the DSPs to push the drivers to finish
quicker than what the Amazon’s algorithm predicts we would finish by.”
- US delivery driver
“ THEY WALKED
THROUGH THE
CORRIDORS TO
MAKE SURE I DIDN’T
EVEN EXCHANGE
A WORD WITH
COLLEAGUES.”
25
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
26
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
AN ATMOSPHERE OF FEAR
“I constantly remind our employees to be afraid, to wake
up every morning terrified.”
- Former Amaz
on CEO Je Bezos, 1998 shareholder letter
7
Beyond the pressure of meeting productivity expectations, and the discomfort at being excessively
monitored, workers indicated another distinct dimension of the experience of working at Amazon:
fear, of the kind one might expect from the subjects of a police state. In fact, several workers chose to
characterize their feelings as exactly “dystopian”, while others used the image of “Big Brother”.
These feelings are reflected in the recurring testimony by workers that Amazon doesn’t even want
them talking to each other.
“Managers come to ask if you are okay after a short time that you have not
scanned a piece, or as soon as they see you talking to a colleague with the
excuse that you are distracted.”
- Italian warehouse worker
“They even came to look for you in the bathroom. They walked through the
corridors to make sure I didn’t even exchange a word with colleagues.”
- Italian warehouse worker
“My co-workers and I were always scared to speak in front of cameras
while working.”
- Australian warehouse worker
“With about 200+ cameras in the warehouse it felt that we were being
watched 24/7 and judged based on our performance. We could not speak
much and had to work robotically with such high pressure.”
- Australian warehouse worker
“Those who work hard just stop for 5 minutes to say hello to someone, or to
sit down because they can’t take it anymore, and a manager or lead arrives
behind them to make them go back to work.”
- French warehouse worker
7 Text can be found here, retrieved 11/29/22
27
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
Perhaps unsurprisingly, these considerations even aected workers’ experience of the very survey
they were filling out.
“Please do not mention my name or anything like that.”
- German warehouse worker
“I fear losing my job, therefore, I have to respectfully decline [to share
additional stories]. Sorry.”
- US delivery driver
Comments like these indicate a pervasive environment of fear, where workers do not feel comfortable
speaking their minds, even outside of work. Such an atmosphere also impedes workers from
easily exercising their right to organize and collectively demand that the many diverse grievances
uncovered in this report be addressed.
28
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
SUCH AN
ATMOSPHERE
IMPEDES WORKERS
FROM EASILY
EXERCISING
THEIR RIGHT
TO ORGANIZE.
29
Life in the Amazon Panopticon
CONCLUSIONS
On balance, the results of the largest ever survey of Amazon workers paints a clear picture. The
workers surveyed find Amazon’s technological monitoring of their work to be excessive. The
productivity targets they are expected to meet were described as unrealistic. In order to try and
reach these expectations, they push themselves to the limit, with impacts on their physical health
and, even more acutely, their mental health.
Overwhelmingly, the surveyed workers report that Amazon is not transparent regarding how it uses
their data. 53.5% said they fear being fired for not reaching productivity targets, and many described
an unaccountable system, where even managers must defer to unforgiving algorithms.
Many of the individual findings of this report may be unsurprising to those who have investigated or
read about working conditions at Amazon. What is new is the scale of data, the richness and diversity
of worker testimony, and the striking consistency across various countries.
In this way, the results of the survey lend a greater sense of urgency to ongoing advocacy for the
rights of Amazon workers worldwide.
division
name
www.uniglobalunion.org
With staff and partners throughout the world, UNI Global Union brings together
workers from over 150 different countries in the service economy to win better
www.jarrow-insights.co
Jarrow Insights is a Companies House registered workers’ co-operative, a member
of the Co-Tech digital co-ops federation and of Co-operatives UK.
jobs and better lives.