“Amazon surveillance boosts worker output, may limit unions: Paper”, 01 September 2020

Amazon.com relies on extensive worker surveillance to boost employee output and potentially limit unionisation efforts around the United States, according to a research paper by the Open Markets Institute (OMI).

The paper says Amazon moves employees around in what could be an attempt to limit union organising. For example, it creates heat maps and uses data such as team-member sentiment and a diversity index to figure out which of its stores may have a higher risk of unionising, the report says.

This can have an impact on workers' ability to advocate for better working conditions and push for collective action, the paper said.

A company spokesman said Amazon has expectations from its employees and measures performance against those expectations.

The paper says invasive forms of worker surveillance should be prohibited and employers such as Amazon should obtain approval from state and federal agencies for non-invasive tracking measures that do not harm workers.

The research paper also says the National Labor Relations Board should prohibit certain types of surveillance and its use to limit unionisation efforts.