Monitoring algorithms replace managers in enforcing work intensity

Evidence

A third strategy is the use of monitoring technologies to force employees to simply work harder: that is, to keep work intensity high. Today, Amazon is the vanguard in this inhuman technology. “I was a picker and we were expected to always pick 400 units [packages] within the hour,” said Juan Espinoza, an Amazon employee interviewed by The Guardian. “I couldn’t handle it. I’m a human being, not a robot.” Ilya Geller, another employee added: “You’re being tracked by a computer the entire time you’re there. You don’t get reported or written up by managers. You get written up by an algorithm…. You’re keenly aware there is an algorithm keeping track of you, making sure you keep going as fast as you can, because if there is too much time lapsed between items, the computer will know this, will write you up, and you will get fired.” The production model of Amazon is based on a constant turnover of personnel who leave due to excessive psycho-physical stress. — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 117

Categorization

• XREF: Algorithmic management as a mechanism of exploitation connects to the reader’s broader interest in capitalism’s impersonal quality. — connects to: Surveillance of workers installs most densely in low-wage work. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 482; Smart scheduling replaces stable workforces with unpredictable just-in-time temp shifts; Behavioral monitoring replaces reasons with algorithmic performance thresholds in urban governance — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 716 (+8 more)