How Amazon automatically tracks and fires warehouse workers for 'productivity'

[demmiblue]

Amazon’s fulfillment centers are the engine of the company — massive warehouses where workers track, pack, sort, and shuffle each order before sending it on its way to the buyer’s door.

Critics say those fulfillment center workers face strenuous conditions: workers are pressed to “make rate,” with some packing hundreds of boxes per hour, and losing their job if they don’t move fast enough. “You’ve always got somebody right behind you who’s ready to take your job,” says Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance and a prominent Amazon critic.

Documents obtained by The Verge show those productivity firings are far more common than outsiders realize. In a signed letter last year, an attorney representing Amazon said the company fired “hundreds” of employees at a single facility between August of 2017 and September 2018 for failing to meet productivity quotas. A spokesperson for the company said that, over that time, roughly 300 full-time associates were terminated for inefficiency.

The number represents a substantial portion of the facility’s workers: a spokesperson said the named fulfillment center in Baltimore includes about 2,500 full-time employees today. Assuming a steady rate, that would mean Amazon was firing more than 10 percent of its staff annually, solely for productivity reasons. The numbers are even more staggering in North America as a whole. Amazon operates more than 75 fulfillment centers with more than 125,000 full-time employees, suggesting thousands lose their jobs with the company annually for failing to move packages quickly enough.

The documents also show a deeply automated tracking and termination process. “Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each individual associate’s productivity,” according to the letter, “and automatically generates any warnings or terminations regarding quality or productivity without input from supervisors.” (Amazon says supervisors are able to override the process.)

Critics see the system as a machine that only sees numbers, not people. “One of the things that we hear consistently from workers is that they are treated like robots in effect because they’re monitored and supervised by these automated systems,” Mitchell says. “They’re monitored and supervised by robots.”

The system goes so far as to track “time off task,” which the company abbreviates as TOT. If workers break from scanning packages for too long, the system automatically generates warnings and, eventually, the employee can be fired. Some facility workers have said they avoid bathroom breaks to keep their time in line with expectations.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/25/18516004/amazon-warehouse-fulfillment-centers-productivity-firing-terminations

It must be hell working there.

[Sanity Claws]

1. Boycott Amazon

[loves_da_dems]

2. Agreed

People first not profit. They should outlaw these brutal working conditions.

[defacto7]

17. I do, I have for a long time.

[trev]

25. I haven't bought anything from Amazon for years.

And even when I did, I only bought books.

I've hated what Amazon has become.

[zentrum]

3. Boycott Whole Foods too.

Owned by the same monster.

Isn't Amazon one of the corporations that doesn't pay taxes or at any rate, its fair share of taxes?

[dameatball]

5. I believe they paid zero for 2018. I have no source but am pretty sure that has been stated on DU

here and there.

[defacto7]

20. Negative tax. Governments paid them

[Sanity Claws]

18. Yes! How we spend our money is a political act.

[defacto7]

19. They payed negative tax last year. Governments paid them.

[dameatball]

4. I was a supervisor at a large distribution center that had these kinds of engineered standards.

This was back in the 80's. I recall that a bathroom break was six minutes. Nobody was ever happy and it was the worst job I ever had. Actually it was a good thing in the end because I left and started an entirely new career for 33 years.

[Rebl2]

7. That's right

This has always been the case for large distribution centers. Maybe the way it’s done now is different, but this is nothing new. When my husband sorted mail at the post office in the mid 80’s I believe they were admonished if they didn’t sort fast enough. Back then it was all manual sorting and not done by machines like it is now.

[William Seger]

8. I worked at a Target warehouse one summer, early 70s

Yup, worse job I ever had. But it paid a little more than minimum wage, which is why they didn't have trouble finding replacements for anyone who wasn't fast enough. There was a lot of turnover that summer, but I don't know how many were fired and how many just couldn't take it anymore -- I was certainly ready to quit before the summer was over.

[Harker]

6. Time and motion studies

are used inhumanely.

[dalton99a]

9. In Bezos' world, people are fungible appendages of machinery

[yaesu]

10. The bottom line is if you are in a non union job & work for a conglomerate this is your future nt

[dlk]

11. A High Tech Sweatshop...

[extvbroadcaster]

12. Same with the call center in the 90's

Amazon warehouse work sounds like hell. I don't know how older people do it. Reading about it reminds me of one of my worst jobs.
It was a phone center, and I finally got out in 1997. But it was the same thing. They tracked everything. Number of calls you took, time on calls, break times, time off system, time available for calls, etc. They even tracked the computer screens so they could see if you were skipping screens you were supposed to be filling out during the call. There were minimum standards across the board. They had a "bonus" system each quarter. But it was almost impossible to get the bonus. You had to hit all the marks, one of which was attendance. If you were late or missed work for any reason - kid sick, car wreck, anything - no bonus. You could only go to the bathroom during approved break times. If you had to go other times, you could only be "off the system" for 3 minutes without it flagging you. So supervisors would call you in and demand to know why you were off the system outside of break times. You had to be humiliated and tell them you had to use the bathroom and it took more than 3 minutes. Our supervisors had a monthly "chart" they posted. If you were hitting the marks, they highlighted your name and stats in green. If you were borderline, you were in pink. If you were about to be terminated for under performance, it was red. Since everybody hated the place, workers tried to do as little as possible. During the monthly reviews, you would be called in and talked to. Then you would return to your cubicle and the people around your area would usually ask how it went. The standard joke was you were "in the pink!"

[forgotmylogin]

13. It's similar today, but depends on venue.

Where I work we generate automated productivity reports, but there is a human supervisory layer and the reports are for them to coach the agents how to work better and more efficiently. In most cases, it's a matter of habitual bad behavior or unproductivity that will get you fired. The report isn't generating an automatic "to be fired" list.

Our high turnover rate is usually because of the kids for whom this is their first job right out of high school and have never waited tables or dug a ditch complaining that they are "mistreated" in a job where they get to sit in a chair at a computer talking on the phone. Employees can also earn back absence points by going an entire month without an unexcused late-arrival or absence, and it's shocking how some 18-19 year-olds don't clue in on what's expected in their first job.

It's not quite as brutal, but when they need to reduce headcount they "tighten the screws" and start enforcing the rules more thoroughly and the people low on the productivity list are the first ones under consideration to be let go. That also means that veteran good employees who learn to work the system are allowed a good deal of slack.

At least in the call center, the work is primarily not physical, and they are able to hire differently-abled folks who do great work and are wonderful employees. Also, we have work-at-home which is a godsend for agents who need to be home for health reasons or with their children.

I have heard stories from those who worked at the major call centers - often those run directly by a company instead of an outsource venue - where people would get quietly tapped on the shoulder and escorted out by security with very little warning or fanfare.

[extvbroadcaster]

15. Endless stories

I agree there are some things better today as far as call centers go. My experience just generated endless stories I can entertain people with today when they think they have a bad job. A favorite story is the "bonus week" - management decided they needed to boost profits so if you took extra calls and really generated revenue you would get a bonus. It was only for a week, but there was a catch. They would not tell the employees what the bonus would be. Everyone expected cash or time off. The guy next to me in the cubicle farm asked me if I was going to try for the bonus. I told him "shit no" and would continue to do the bare minimum. He was new, he did not know the place like I did. So I plodded along and he worked like crazy. Worked through breaks, took extra calls, really went for it. And he got the bonus! He was so happy. I should note this was in early November. So the following Monday they go around to hand out the bonus. What will it be? My cubicle mate could hardly contain his excitement. The supervisors came to his cubicle and handed him his bonus. It was a double Reeses peanut butter cup candy bar. That was it. What they had done was go out and buy left over Halloween candy and gave that as a bonus, one candy bar per person. My cubicle mate was beyond angry. I had to just smile and resist telling him "I told you so."

[forgotmylogin]

21. I have to say our center did a decent job.

Though we got some lame bonuses, they fed us frequently for holidays and for other reasons. We had a several-day regional power outage one summer and they kept the break room filled with bottled water and pizza trucked in from a distance because they knew people didn't feel like coming in. I counted it as a bonus because they have a huge generator and they were able to run their AC. People were working overtime to stay in the cool air!

One of the funniest debacles was an employee appreciation day one year that was luau-themed. The fun party-gift they gave everyone were these rubber pineapples that someone must have ordered in bulk sight-unseen not realizing they were squeaky pet toys. It sounded like we worked in the bat cave for several days and we ran the supervisors back and forth around the floor trying to find who was making noise after several "stop squeaking the damn pineapples!" IMs. They couldn't summarily take them all away from everyone since they were an "official" gift!

[defacto7]

23. According to your story you didn't "tell him so", you didn't tell him anything.

So who cares? None of us I guess.

[Johnny2X2X]

24. I worked good and bad call center jobs

I worked ones where we were treated like cattle. I worked ones where we made a nice living.

For decades now, Call Center jobs have been for the poor though. They are actually skilled sales jobs, but not compensated well most places. It’s a high demand skill to be able to sell in the phone several hours a day. It many people can do it well, you should be making $25+ an hour if you are good, you’re generating a ton of revenue for the company.

I once worked at a call center that was campaigning for Bob Dole and the Joyce Jilson Psychic Network at the same time.

[Martin Eden]

14. Productivity standards and labor tracking are necessary

I've worked in a fulfillment center for 25+ years, rising from a temp to a manager. Without standards and tracking some employees will not give an honest effort, which is not fair to those who work diligently for the same pay.

However, 10% annual workforce termination for productivity seems high. I suspect Amazon calculated profits are higher with fewer long term employees accruing benefits like more vacation time.

I would much rather see extra pay for good productivity than negative reinforcement which makes for a miserable work environment. Low performers should receive positive coaching and if they are physically unable to meet standards but otherwise a good employee, an effort should be made to find a more suitable position.

[lambchopp59]

16. Deplorable conditions revisited, thanks to anti-collective, anti-big-gubmint stupidity.

[2naSalit]

22. Perhaps, then, it may be better

that they are planting their newest facilities near larger populations and other employers. If they set up in a rural location, as they already have, they become the one place to work and if you don't do the company's bidding, you're toast and will end up relocating for lack of income availability. Look at the slaughterhouse industry and how those communities exist.

People are going to get hip to the shit* and stop applying to work for them, enough to the point that they will suffer. Of course, it would be best if we didn't help them become like the kochtopus. No one person with that much money and thus power, should be allowed to have that much wealth and power.

*I wish they would hurry up.

[Me.]

26. So...Even If Amason Had Fulfilled A Promise To Hire 25,000 Workers In NY

in ten years, they could've fired many of them for lack of productivity

[democratisphere]

27. Already did not renew Prime and I avoid buying anything from Amazon

like they are the plague.

[Panich52]

28. Walmart of the Net

Aggressive hunt for monopoly, like Walfart, is why I avoid buying from them. (I miss my now-closed favorite little book store.)