Even more reasons to stop making Bezos richer and richer.
QuoteLeaked memo shows Amazon knows delivery drivers resort to urinating in bottles
Documents provided to the Intercept published after the company denied reports delivery workers lack access to bathrooms
Amazon caused an uproar on Thursday when it denied reports that its delivery workers have been forced to urinate in bottles due to lack of access to bathrooms, but a leaked internal memo shows the company has been aware of the problem for at least several months.
Documents provided by employees at Amazon to the Intercept showed that an email sent in May 2020 admonished workers for urinating in bottles and defecating in bags while on the job.
"This evening, an associate discovered human feces in an Amazon bag that was returned to station by a driver," the email reads. "This is the 3rd occasion in the last 2 months when bags have been returned to station with poop inside. We understand that DA's [driver associates] may have emergencies while on-road, and especially during Covid, DAs have struggled to find bathrooms while delivering. Regardless, DAs cannot, MUST NOT, return bags to station with poop inside."
The email went on to say: "We've noticed an uptick recently of all kinds of unsanitary garbage being left inside bags: used masks, gloves, bottles of urine."
Workers told the Intercept the issue was commonly referred to in internal discussions, with one former Amazon employee telling the publication that drivers are "implicitly forced to do so, otherwise we will end up losing our jobs for too many 'undelivered packages.'"
The revelation followed a combative tweet from Amazon aimed at a Wisconsin congressman, who took the company to task over working conditions. The saga unfolded amid a showdown with workers in Alabama who are trying to unionize the workplace.
It's not the first time workers at Amazon, which is known for its gruelling hours, have spoken out about the problem.
Workers have previously told the Guardian they needed to urinate inside water bottles on a daily basis for fear of missing delivery rates. A forum on Reddit dedicated to Amazon drivers, which, while impossible to vet completely for authenticity, nonetheless shows hundreds of comments from drivers claiming they frequently have to urinate in water bottles for lack of bathroom breaks while on the job, particularly as the Covid-19 pandemic increased the amount of deliveries.
Amazon saw a 37% increase in sales in one quarter alone in 2020 and executive Jeff Bezos personally saw his personal net worth increase by $70bn during the pandemic.
The bathroom controversy exposed on Thursday marks just the latest blowback surrounding how Amazon treats employees – and its delivery drivers in particular. Earlier this week, Vice reported drivers were being forced to sign "biometric consent" forms to continue working for the retailing giant.
These forms would allow AI-powered cameras to keep watch over the drivers, who number around 75,000 in the United States, while on the clock. Evan Greer, the deputy director of workers rights and privacy advocacy group Fight for the Future, said lawmakers must ban biometric surveillance entirely, because workers trying to stay afloat during precarious times cannot reasonably be expected to turn down the policy if it means losing a job.
"Forcing workers to agree to constant monitoring by racist, AI powered surveillance cameras or get fired is not how consent works," she said. "Lawmakers should act now to ban these practices entirely. No one should be forced to work in inhumane conditions, and hand over their sensitive biometric information to their boss, just to put food on the table."
Amazon did not respond to request for comment.
Racist? How is a camera racist?
I don't know if it is racist but it sure sucks to have your boss monitoring you with AI cameras. Ah well. The 1984 workplace of the future.
Quote from: Berkut on March 26, 2021, 09:30:26 AM
Racist? How is a camera racist?
So there's I'd say three main ways a camera is racist - if it doesn't have the data to work with all races; if the historic data it's trained on is biased; or if it is trained to be biased. I think the issue here is particularly around the second point but I could be wrong.
There's issues with facial recognition technology, for example, that has primarily been trained on white faces not recognising the faces of black or Asian people. So if your training dataset is limited in that way (and this was a big problem with a lot of early AI) then it literally will not work for all races which is crucial if it's a gateway to services or something. But then to take that to the other extreme there's the facial recognition/surveillance technology developed by Chinese companies (who supply Western goverments and businesses too) that have been specifically trained to identify Uyghurs.
The other issue which I think is probably more relevant here is about the data used to train the AI in systems. Basically if the raw information used to train the system reflects existing discrimination and racism then the AI will re-produce results with that discrimination and racism. Except because it's by a machine or an algorithm it will have the patina of being a neutral, tech solution even though what it has learned through the input data is to re-produce human biases.
So there's loads of algorithms that can be used in recruitment for example, but you can't just train it on historic data or you're just making an electronic version of the recruitment biases that might have existed (I think Amazon tried to build something like this based on their historic hiring decisions and found the algorithm would auto-reject loads of good women applicants because there was historic bias in their recruitment).
There's a lot of thinking and potential regulation around how to do AI in a fair way when it comes to making decisions about individuals (which is restricted in Europe and other countries) and how to sort of ethically build AI to behave as we want it to - which is generally in a neutral way - rather than just reflecting pre-existing biases. One of the issues though is the lack of transparency within the algorithm that can make it difficult to understand or explain what it is doing and how it does it - this tends to be the big hurdle in Europe where you need to "meaningfully explain" automated decisions to individuals - and often, at this stage, we can't.
Also, separately, employee monitoring is very, very difficult in Europe and is creepy :ph34r:
Quote from: Berkut on March 26, 2021, 09:30:26 AM
Racist? How is a camera racist?
If it involves facial recognition software could have problematic outcomes disproportionately on non-whites.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/how-is-face-recognition-surveillance-technology-racist/
Or as Sheilbh said in a verbose manner. :P
Quote from: garbon on March 26, 2021, 09:48:42 AM
Or as Sheilbh said in a verbose manner. :P
:lol: As is my wont :Embarrass:
Edit: I suppose the point is cameras aren't just cameras any more. They normally have software and often an AI sitting behind them (and this goes for almost everything now), so cameras can be racist in the same way as credit scores can be racist and for very similar reasons. Even if in theory both should be some sort of neutral way of making decisions.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 26, 2021, 09:47:00 AM
Also, separately, employee monitoring is very, very difficult in Europe and is creepy :ph34r:
Indeed.
Hey, I am definitely with them on the monitoring thing. Fuck that noise.
But racist? Are they planning on only monitoring black employees?
It just sounds like that was thrown in because, well, that then makes Amazon RACIST! in addition to anything else they can to make them seem terrible.
I get that a a monitoring system *could be* racist in how it is implemented, but you would need to show that it is so, or at least reasonably show that there is a legitimate concern that it could be so, or is likely to be so.
Quote from: Valmy on March 26, 2021, 09:58:34 AM
Indeed.
Working in privacy this is one of the biggest hurdles in working with American clients is explaining that in Europe privacy is a fundamental right so applies to everyone including employees, while in America it's primarily a function of consumer rights and ID theft/financial risk - so aside from, say, your payroll (with lots of social security numbers etc) it generally doesn't matter for employees. This is starting to shift in state laws but it's a huge philosophical gap that takes a little while to get used to.
Edit: Similarly in Europe the idea of "consent" from an employee is extremely limited because consent is meaningless if you can't refuse it and there's such a big imbalance of power that often employees can't refuse consent - so it's not impossible but it's pretty limited. Again it's a big difference in philosophy in the US.
A story about how ill treated Amazon workers pee in bottles because they do not get sufficient work breaks. Is striking that the labour laws would be so bare as to permit this sort of thing to occur. But in true Languish form, a US poster objects to a throw away use of the word racist rather than discussing what the article is actually about. Perhaps this is an example of why US labour laws are so abysmal?
Quote from: Berkut on March 26, 2021, 10:02:24 AM
But racist? Are they planning on only monitoring black employees?
The quote says that the cameras are racist, not that they're planning on monitoring only black employees. It's a valid concern, though unfortunately there is a lot of nonsense being perpetuated about this issue. As with other matters of social justice, it's impossible to have an honest objective debate, as one side is far less likely to have its bullshit challenged than the other. You can never go wrong with saying that AI algorithms are biased, your heart is in the right place even if your reasoning isn't, but God help you if you challenge some of these concerns and it turns out that you were wrong, or enough people believed that you were wrong.
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 26, 2021, 10:27:42 AM
A story about how ill treated Amazon workers pee in bottles because they do not get sufficient work breaks. Is striking that the labour laws would be so bare as to permit this sort of thing to occur. But in true Languish form, a US poster objects to a throw away use of the word racist rather than discussing what the article is actually about. Perhaps this is an example of why US labour laws are so abysmal?
I would assume it's because we mostly agree the general situation is a problem... so not much to discuss there?
I would like to know if these well known issues with how Amazon treats its workers has affected any of our shopping habits. Personally I've avoided Amazon like the plague since these kind of things started becoming public knowledge.
Not really news that sorry we missed you was practically a documentary no?
Quote from: The Larch on March 26, 2021, 11:52:29 AM
I would like to know if these well known issues with how Amazon treats its workers has affected any of our shopping habits. Personally I've avoided Amazon like the plague since these kind of things started becoming public knowledge.
About as much as revelations on Wal Mart's treatment of its employees change physical shopping habits... Not much.
Quote from: Sheilbh on March 26, 2021, 09:47:00 AM
So there's I'd say three main ways a camera is racist - if it doesn't have the data to work with all races; if the historic data it's trained on is biased; or if it is trained to be biased. I think the issue here is particularly around the second point but I could be wrong.
There's issues with facial recognition technology, for example, that has primarily been trained on white faces not recognising the faces of black or Asian people. So if your training dataset is limited in that way (and this was a big problem with a lot of early AI) then it literally will not work for all races which is crucial if it's a gateway to services or something. But then to take that to the other extreme there's the facial recognition/surveillance technology developed by Chinese companies (who supply Western goverments and businesses too) that have been specifically trained to identify Uyghurs.
The other issue which I think is probably more relevant here is about the data used to train the AI in systems. Basically if the raw information used to train the system reflects existing discrimination and racism then the AI will re-produce results with that discrimination and racism. Except because it's by a machine or an algorithm it will have the patina of being a neutral, tech solution even though what it has learned through the input data is to re-produce human biases.
So there's loads of algorithms that can be used in recruitment for example, but you can't just train it on historic data or you're just making an electronic version of the recruitment biases that might have existed (I think Amazon tried to build something like this based on their historic hiring decisions and found the algorithm would auto-reject loads of good women applicants because there was historic bias in their recruitment).
There's a lot of thinking and potential regulation around how to do AI in a fair way when it comes to making decisions about individuals (which is restricted in Europe and other countries) and how to sort of ethically build AI to behave as we want it to - which is generally in a neutral way - rather than just reflecting pre-existing biases. One of the issues though is the lack of transparency within the algorithm that can make it difficult to understand or explain what it is doing and how it does it - this tends to be the big hurdle in Europe where you need to "meaningfully explain" automated decisions to individuals - and often, at this stage, we can't.
Also, separately, employee monitoring is very, very difficult in Europe and is creepy :ph34r:
I don't see how any of these things relate to monitoring on the job performance.
:lol: Fair - my point was these are some of the ways a camera can be racist.
Quote from: garbon on March 26, 2021, 10:58:17 AM
I would assume it's because we mostly agree the general situation is a problem... so not much to discuss there?
I feel like I don't have enough information to comment meaningfully.
I think CC is right, the reason we have such terrible labor laws (and we do, and we know this because he says so, and his well known record on understanding exactly how America works in every detail is not questionable) is because I felt like I was allowed to comment on one particular detail in a post, which obviously means I am definitely on Amazon's side in all other details. Clearly.
His ability to just really understand what it is to be an American, in America, and everything about America, is just uncanny.
Quote from: garbon on March 26, 2021, 10:58:17 AM
Quote from: crazy canuck on March 26, 2021, 10:27:42 AM
A story about how ill treated Amazon workers pee in bottles because they do not get sufficient work breaks. Is striking that the labour laws would be so bare as to permit this sort of thing to occur. But in true Languish form, a US poster objects to a throw away use of the word racist rather than discussing what the article is actually about. Perhaps this is an example of why US labour laws are so abysmal?
I would assume it's because we mostly agree the general situation is a problem... so not much to discuss there?
Don't lose focus on what is important here!
Quote from: Berkut on March 26, 2021, 02:01:35 PM
I think CC is right, the reason we have such terrible labor laws (and we do, and we know this because he says so, and his well known record on understanding exactly how America works in every detail is not questionable) is because I felt like I was allowed to comment on one particular detail in a post, which obviously means I am definitely on Amazon's side in all other details. Clearly.
His ability to just really understand what it is to be an American, in America, and everything about America, is just uncanny.
CC is a lift-wing mirror-Trumpeter. Everything must be OUTRAGEOUS if he doesn't approve of it. E.g., if you ever question the cost-effectiveness of any Green Party policy anywhere, you must want to DESTROY PLANET!
The lack of bathroom breaks (and them urinating in bottles) for delivery drivers is also reported in Germany.
It is hard to address even if as society we want to. And we should want to as delivery drivers are both essential and have virtually no bargaining power as the job is unskilled. Having a group of people with these working conditions should not be tolerated.
The drivers are often "independent" subcontractors, so normal employee rules would not apply to them, unless we force the delivery services to hire all their drivers. That would be a very severe market intervention, which would likely fall foul of EU single market regulation and the idea of contractual freedom.
The pressure from high number of packages to be delivered per day, subcontractors and employees being liable for the delivered goods and subcontractors having to provide a van at their own cost is problematic. Not sure how to address that. I guess the liability part at least for employed drivers should be addressable with mandatory insurance bought by the employers or so.
Also the very nature of delivery driving makes it virtually impossible to provide private restrooms for them close to their routes. Corona made it worse with public restrooms closed. That said, more accessible public restrooms - coming with their own issues - seems to be a realistic policy to help these people out.
Terrible working conditions is one thing.
Monitoring workers is another. I am not sure employing cameras for the purpose is so much different for having the people employed for that purpose doing it in person, but it could be.
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2021, 05:10:25 AM
Terrible working conditions is one thing.
Monitoring workers is another. I am not sure employing cameras for the purpose is so much different for having the people employed for that purpose doing it in person, but it could be.
Well for one, the AI behind the cameras, could catch many more 'infractions' than a human overseer. It also will have no compassion.
Quote from: garbon on March 28, 2021, 05:28:36 AM
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2021, 05:10:25 AM
Terrible working conditions is one thing.
Monitoring workers is another. I am not sure employing cameras for the purpose is so much different for having the people employed for that purpose doing it in person, but it could be.
Well for one, the AI behind the cameras, could catch many more 'infractions' than a human overseer. It also will have no compassion.
I highly doubt the incidents flagged by the "AI" if we want to call a glorified algorithm that, would not be reviewed by a human before decisions are made on it.
The cameras can give immediate feedback to the driver:
QuoteThe systems can then provide real-time feedback, telling a driver to take a break or keep their eyes on the road.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2021/3/24/22347945/amazon-delivery-drivers-ai-surveillance-cameras-vans-consent-form
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2021, 05:32:22 AM
Quote from: garbon on March 28, 2021, 05:28:36 AM
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2021, 05:10:25 AM
Terrible working conditions is one thing.
Monitoring workers is another. I am not sure employing cameras for the purpose is so much different for having the people employed for that purpose doing it in person, but it could be.
Well for one, the AI behind the cameras, could catch many more 'infractions' than a human overseer. It also will have no compassion.
I highly doubt the incidents flagged by the "AI" if we want to call a glorified algorithm that, would not be reviewed by a human before decisions are made on it.
Depends on how data is reported back. Surely there's a difference between a manager noting an unauthorised break being taken and understanding why vs. data report that shows driver x was late y amount of times in the past x months.
I've been running a training series at my work where I keep attendance so we will know who attended the training and who has not received it. If I just sent that grid to my manager without any commentary, there are multiple people who might get a stern talking to who just happened to have already had leave scheduled at the time of a couple training sessions.
Quote from: garbon on March 28, 2021, 06:26:18 AM
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2021, 05:32:22 AM
Quote from: garbon on March 28, 2021, 05:28:36 AM
Quote from: Tamas on March 28, 2021, 05:10:25 AM
Terrible working conditions is one thing.
Monitoring workers is another. I am not sure employing cameras for the purpose is so much different for having the people employed for that purpose doing it in person, but it could be.
Well for one, the AI behind the cameras, could catch many more 'infractions' than a human overseer. It also will have no compassion.
I highly doubt the incidents flagged by the "AI" if we want to call a glorified algorithm that, would not be reviewed by a human before decisions are made on it.
Depends on how data is reported back. Surely there's a difference between a manager noting an unauthorised break being taken and understanding why vs. data report that shows driver x was late y amount of times in the past x months.
I've been running a training series at my work where I keep attendance so we will know who attended the training and who has not received it. If I just sent that grid to my manager without any commentary, there are multiple people who might get a stern talking to who just happened to have already had leave scheduled at the time of a couple training sessions.
It all depends on how it will be used in practice. If it is used to have drivers/employees fired on the spot when the "AI" gives a warning then that's obviously retarded and evil. If the "AI" gives a warning to be reviewed by a human supervisor, well, I don't see too much problem with it, although it can be abused and overdone and create unnecessary stress. But plenty of corporate processes do that already all over the world.