Artificial intelligence (AI) is slowly taking our jobs away. Amazon has put in place a technology that will automatically fire around 100 employees for not meeting the required productivity quotas. The concept of using AI by Amazon to improve productivity is worth applause. A computer system can not measure everything. Documents get signed by the Amazon attorneys before handing it over to the system. They review the automated process before taking legal action. It is still unclear whether Amazon is implementing the system.
Unreasonable Expectations
Fulfillment center workers face strenuous conditions. They press workers to reach quotas with some packing hundreds of boxes per hour. Potentially 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.
“Amazon’s system tracks the rates of each individual associate’s productivity,” quoted The Verge.
The system automatically generates any warnings or terminations regarding quality or productivity without input from supervisors.
My Boss The Robot
The AI system tracks the rates of each individual regarding productivity prior to taking any decision. Amazon has already set its performance expectations for the employees and expects them to work on it.
Legal Documents from The Verge show that productivity firings are far more common than outsiders realize. Stated in a signed letter last year, an attorney representing Amazon said the company fired “hundreds” of employees at a single facility for not meeting productivity quotas. A spokesperson for the company said that, over that period, they ended around 300 full-time employee contracts for inefficiency.
They give employees coaching and support for improvement without directly letting them go.
Working Like Machines
As a growing business, Amazon believes to serve long-term career development and openings for its employees. Their fulfillment centers have integrated a lot of automated processes in recent years. Their intricate system of warehouse robots has been taking away jobs from people, but also providing a chance in certain other cases. They put the warehouse workers under high pressure in the company.
While they redacted names on the termination list filed by Amazon, it includes over 900 entries, each worker’s supervisor, and the reason they got fired. They ended all the employee contracts on the list for productivity-related offenses. Amazon said that a mistake resulted in an overly broad list being filed that included other performance problems and that it was fixing the error with the board.
To ensure that employee efficiency continues, Amazon has developed “a proprietary productivity metric.” They set goals objectively and base them on metrics like customer demand and location.
Workforce Resistance
Some workers have pushed back against the company’s productivity requirements. East African immigrant workers at a Minnesota facility organized protests against the company last year. They protested for not having sufficient break time.
