Worker Surveillance Is on the Rise, and
Has Its Roots in Centuries of Racism
a whole realm of technology is being developed so that companies can surveil their workers in order
to manage their productivity,
make hiring and promotion decisions, and
even predict their health outcomes.
Amazon-owned Whole Foods is now using an interactive “heat map”
to track unionization risk.
The surveillance tool uses a simple yet invasive methodology to see how likely employees are to organize for better working conditions.
The heat map is used to monitor more than 95,000 employees in over 510 stores. As Hayley Peterson reports:
The stores’ individual risk scores are calculated from more than two dozen metrics, including
employee “loyalty,”
turnover, and
racial diversity;
“tipline” calls to human resources;
proximity to a union office; and
violations recorded by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The map also tracks local economic and demographic factors such as the unemployment rate in a store’s location and
the percentage of families in the area living below the poverty line.
https://truthout.org/articles/worker-surveillance-is-on-the-rise-and-has-its-roots-in-centuries-of-racism/