
Amazon's warehouse worker tracking system can automatically fire people - vezycash
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-system-automatically-fires-warehouse-workers-time-off-task-2019-4
======
nisa
Worked in a warehouse for a german online retailer as a picker a few years
back - tracking everything you do is totally normal - people worked through
breaks to reach their limit, too and the break is a joke because it's a huge
hall and more than 50% of the time is spend reaching the break-area and to go
back.

Someone at Amazon basically throught why does a human have to look at the
statistics after a few months and replaced it with some code - but besides
that, that tracking and pressure is probably common in almost all online
retailer warehouses. Maybe some cynic asshole thought that not letting the
team-lead to do firing prevents keeping employees that perform bad but have
good reasons for it - like beeing older or having medical problems.

~~~
petra
Why ? What's the big deal if a package costs a few more cents to fulfill?

Is it a competitive disadvantage - or just standard greed ?

~~~
michaelt
Amazon's sales are in the billions of items annually [1]

If you can save two cents on each of 5 billion packages, you save $100 million
per year. Most employers will give raises and promotions to people who deliver
operational expense savings that large.

[1]
[https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518...](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000119312518121161/d456916dex991.htm)
Five billion items to prime users

~~~
theredbox
The problem with this is the savings are usually negligible compared to
spendings of higher management.

I think it utterly destroys the image of the company if it cannot act
"humane".

It's fine to keep costs under control ..but..if you are then organizing super
expensive meetings across the world it just looks bad.

------
neilv
> An Amazon spokesperson confirmed to Business Insider, "Approximately 300
> employees turned over in Baltimore related to productivity in this
> timeframe.

Why do they talk like that? I think they're erasing doubt that this is a
corporatist nightmare place to work.

~~~
sigi45
It's a warehouse. We life in the 21th century. In theory if we would sit
together and structure the existing workforce without all the bullshit
overhead of accounting, bullshit jobs and priorities life quality and
sustainability, no one would need to work and we could achieve this in the
next 5, 10, 50 years.

I get that amazon should pay there workforce properly and as long as we have
this, it should be something people can and should do in a social way but
Baltimore is a US City, they don't even have a working health care system.

A warehouse job is a warehouse job. No education needed, why wouldn't a
computer system should not fire people on simple productivity numbers?

~~~
nkozyra
> A warehouse job is a warehouse job. No education needed, why wouldn't a
> computer system should not fire people on simple productivity numbers?

Increasingly, this viewpoint bothers me. To be honest I don't know the ins and
outs of working in an Amazon warehouse but I suspect it's not as brainless a
job as you imply.

Further, why does that attribute make this ok? Why wouldn't it similarly be ok
if the computer could fire people automatically if a threshold of unit tests
failed or if a developer failed to meet LOC quotas?

~~~
gambiting
Because there's more metrics to programming than LOC and if a company treats
it like the only metric then they deserve to go under. Working in a warehouse
does not have multiple dimensions to it. You are paid to pick up things, put
them in boxes and then pick up more things. That's it. It's easy to measure.

For comparison sake, I know someone who runs a company sorting refuse. Each
person in the warehouse needs to sort through 500kg of refuse every day.
That's it. Literally nothing else matters. It's not a complex job, so the
metric is not complex either.

~~~
caseymarquis
My wife says programmers just press buttons and look at a glowing rectangle
all day. I think you've just done the equivalent.

Having worked both in software development and at a warehouse, I can vouch
that both have multiple dimensions.

Oddly enough, both jobs involve sorting algorithms, and both can be completely
derailed by poor management.

~~~
sigi45
Let me work in a warehouse. What do you think how long does my initial
training will take to be a picker at an amazon warehouse?

I will tell you: between 2 days and 6 weeks.

"shrinking its warehouse training time from a conventional six weeks to as
little as two days."

How long do you think i have to train your wife to setup a kubernetes cluster,
make sure it is secure, backuped and works efficient? Then when she knows
that, how to build images, and write code in java, go, bash, ansible etc.?

If the answer is longer than 6 weeks, you see the difference. And don't get me
wrong, i have seen people who had a 3 year education and start as juniors and
miss a lot for years until they get it all right.

------
ascar
I don't think there is a huge ethical problem with automatically terminating
employees based on metrics. Quite the opposite, it could make this process
more fair.

The problem is in how the metrics are used and there is no real difference
between an ill-meaning profit-hungry manager and an ill-meaning profit-hungry
algorithm.

Laying off employees for bathroom breaks or short (days, few weeks)
fluctuations in productivity is wrong. But it's wrong if an algorithm does it
or a human does it. Algorithms could be used to prevent firing an employee in
such a situation.

~~~
crispyambulance

        > ... Algorithms could be used to prevent firing an employee in such a situation.
    

I think you're being _very_ optimistic and a bit naive about the motivations
of a business that would resort to such algorithms.

They want to maximize the throughput rate of picking boxes and minimize their
cost. Sure, it sounds "objective" to say that everyone who doesn't meet the
pre-agreed work criteria would be fired (and not-fired if they meet it).

But who gets to set that threshold? Who determines what is reasonable? What if
that performance threshold can only be met by fit young people and only until
their bodies can't take the stress anymore? How will workers even assess
whether or not they can do the job until they try?

This is an ugly practice. If it survives, it will be coming to a cubicle near
you someday. Hope I am retired by then.

~~~
lotsofpulp
>But who gets to set that threshold? Who determines what is reasonable? What
if that performance threshold can only be met by fit young people and only
until their bodies can't take the stress anymore? How will workers even assess
whether or not they can do the job until they try?

If it's harmful to the worker, then it should fall under the purview of OSHA
in the US.

Otherwise, that threshold is set by consumers who choose to patronize
businesses that treat their employees in a certain way. Almost all of the
time, for goods that can't be distinguished from one another, consumers will
choose to patronize a business offering the lowest price available to them,
hence the businesses that squeeze the most out of the workers survive and the
others do not.

~~~
crispyambulance

       > ...then it should fall under the purview of OSHA in the US.
    

Will OSHA end up being an algorithm as well?

Sorry, but contrary to techno-libertarian fundamentalist beliefs, institutions
and courts just can't keep up when things are so insanely lopsided in favor of
the rich and powerful.

That said, nothing is going to stop amazon from instituting whatever crazy
"expert system" they want to abuse warehouse workers until they're all robots.

------
nkozyra
Is the path to these awful decisions forged by human malice or is this just an
organic byproduct of corporatism? Is it that nobody cares and are just hoping
they don't get called out in the press, or is this stuff generally happening
under the radar under the blanket of "efficiency?"

Also, what a pleasant mobile reading experience!
[https://imgur.com/GXiVkvE](https://imgur.com/GXiVkvE)

~~~
regularfry
I didn't read the article because by the time I'd clicked 4 different popovers
of one sort or another I figured it wasn't worth it. Then I follow your link
to Imgur, and get _another_ quantcast modal. Aargh!

~~~
taneq
How do you use anything on the web without adblock? :S

------
meigwilym
Only three days ago the NYT published "I Used to Work for Google. I Am a
Conscientious Objector." and already we see that someone has coded a automated
employee firing system. I assume the same culture that developed the idea
persuaded the programmer to implement it.

Software is eating the world, but often not in the way we believe it to do.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/opinion/google-privacy-
ch...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/opinion/google-privacy-china.html)

~~~
ReptileMan
It should be noted that no ethically-trained software engineer would ever
consent to write a DestroyBaghdad procedure. Basic professional ethics would
instead require him to write a DestroyCity procedure, to which Baghdad could
be given as a parameter.

As long as the check clears what is the problem with implementing stuff?

~~~
dx034
It's likely the same that happened at Amazon. The programmer probably didn't
create a procedure to fire people, instead it forwards matching data sets to
another system. The programmer of that other system implements procedures for
terminating employments given a list (which could have enough ethical use
cases). Putting both together results in an unethical system but I doubt
everyone involved knew about that.

~~~
sadris
Why is it ethical to terminate bad employees when a human determines said
employee is bad, but unethical if software makes the determination?

Ethnic bias would be eliminated in the latter case.

~~~
empath75
Depending on what information you’re using, you can easily accidentally code
ethnic or other biases into the system.

~~~
burger_moon
Amazon corporate offices have inter-faith prayer rooms and mothers rooms. I
have a feeling they don't offer these basic amenities to hourly employees.

Given the fact that warehouse employees are pissing in gatorade bottles
because they don't have time to use a bathroom I would suspect that
participating in a religion that requires stopping work to prayer mid-shift or
stopping to go breast feed would cause their quotas to drop.

So it's already pretty clear there's a huge bias towards only certain types of
people who can even operate successfully in their warehouse as opposed to
their corporate offices.

Although I guess it's all by design, reading through comments here or anywhere
on HN about worker mistreatment outside of high earning tech salaries and you
can see how little empathy exists among many people here. These are the people
Amazon wants and needs working for them.

------
WheelsAtLarge
This type of monitoring always leads to employees missing breaks, bathroom
visits and working off the clock.

Algorithms have no understanding of human limits and will push and push.
Employees are scared to miss quotas since they will get fired and employers
feel that they can push employees more since quotas are being met. At some
point, it becomes a sweatshop where workers are strained to their limits.

We have seen this type of high-pressure work previously and it does not end
well for both employers and employees. Employees revolt and employers have to
concede to demands or face employee dissatisfaction which leads to societal
disruption.

Companies think that they are improving their bottom line but in the long run,
they disrupt society to the point of chaos for all.

This time may seem different because it's a high tech world but as long as
humans are part of the equation we will see a similar result to previous
situations. It's bad for everyone even if you are not the employer or
employee.

------
pratyushc
So, Manna is finally becoming a reality:
[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
theseareusernam
This reminds me of 'Manna', by Marshall Brain, a sci-fi short story in which
an automated, AI-driven management system (Manna) gradually takes on more and
more responsibility and authority over the world of humans in the workplace,
leading to dystopian consequences. There's a lot more to it than that (I'm bad
at blurbs) but it's highly worth a read.

[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

Once again, fiction predicts reality..

~~~
vbuwivbiu
or someone read it and thought "I like that idea"

------
test1235
Computers Don't Argue - Gordon R. Dickson

[https://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133](https://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133)

------
calvinbhai
I don’t see anything wrong with this.

Most of the warehouse operations will get automated soon. So it’s better (from
the laborers’ perspective) to keep manual labor as efficient/profitable as
possible, otherwise they’ll make it attractive to automate all manual labor.

i.e., those who are considered good warehouse workers, are at risk of losing
their jobs too to automation if the not-so-good workers are not fired.

~~~
sagebird
Just because robots exist does not imply humans should accept being treated
like one in order to be maximally competitive. Societies get to collectively
decide what the floor is for human treatment, not just market forces. (Hint-
the market has no floor in this regard.)

(I upvoted your comment for making a salient point that I think has merit
though I disagree with it.)

~~~
lotsofpulp
That would have nothing to do with Amazon choosing to automate a process.
Society, i.e. government, has the power to decide what the floor is for human
treatment. The people lucky to live in democracies can choose to vote for
representatives that provide minimum amounts of paid leave, maximum amount of
hours worked, etc.

~~~
newsgremlin
Unfortunately governments plan in 5 year cycles, companies plans of Amazon
scale are typically longer than that. I fear we will, and in some ways already
have, reached a point where corporation actions influence government decision
through public perception. PR is corporate propaganda, although it's currently
inconsequential save for consumers being ripped off, in a democracy if you can
convince your company is doing good and politicians are bad, then the role of
government in regulating those companies is subject to people whose careers
are being decided by the electorate that believe the words of a private entity
more than a public one. Suddenly reform is off the cards.

In more recent events people keep saying these huge companies need to pay
their fair share of taxes, yet politicians have made no headway with closing
the mechanisms that allow them to avoid it, and if people lose their jobs
because companies are suddenly forced to pay taxes they would have otherwise
look to avoid paying, then the government will most likely be given the blame.

------
kwhitefoot
Many of the comments here make me think of the interview I heard yesterday
with David Graeber (anthropologist, author of Bullshit jobs).

He made the point that it seems always to be the people who do something
useful who get the worst pay and conditions.

------
esel2k
I have been a longterm dreamer to work for amazon AWS. But honestly speaking
as much money as this company does, I am not sure I want to support this... as
this is a tech forum with big AWS fans here, don’t you think that without
separation of the blue-collar-cruching part and AWS there is a serious risk?
Would you support this organization?

------
bash-j
How is this any different to one of the many gig economy workforce companies
like Uber, Lyft, Postmates, etc? How much human interaction do these employees
have before they are fired? Do humans tell these people if they are performing
badly and offer training to improve?

------
C1sc0cat
Its not like data aka algorithms has not been used for decades to decide this
sort of thing.

I suspect IBM punch card systems have been used for this predating the First
IBM computers.

Having the computer decide is new and could well cause more problems than
having a low level manger do it..

~~~
nixgeek
Not sure if you’re aware of
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust)

~~~
newsgremlin
Surprised I've never heard this book or IBM's specific involvement with the
Nazi regime. Strange how of the many times IBM has been mentioned this isn't
one of the glaring facts that atleast one person brings up.

~~~
C1sc0cat
Its interesting that in WW2 NCR got the contract to build the 4 rotor Bommbes
and Not IBM

------
mnm1
They terminate customer accounts in the same way for no reason so this
certainly shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. Amazon is simply too big to care
about people whether they be customers let alone employees.

------
ryandrake
Every month, Amazon’s warehouse system gets closer and closer to the one
depicted in Manna [1].

1:
[https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](https://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
rdm_blackhole
It kind of reminds me of [https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-
me](https://idiallo.com/blog/when-a-machine-fired-me)

------
sslayer
The real treat will be when they turn it on the managers.

~~~
corobo
This happened at Netflix. I don't know if it was automated or not but the
person that came up with a firing method was fired by said method

[https://www.fastcompany.com/3056662/she-created-netflixs-
cul...](https://www.fastcompany.com/3056662/she-created-netflixs-culture-and-
it-ultimately-got-her-fired)

------
riccardo_gr
that's why i don't want to buy on amazon...

------
newsgremlin
What a type of algorithm like this will never account for (and what it should
really be used for) by design is nepotism.

------
tapland
Hah. Having crohn's disease I would be royally screwed. =/

------
ForHackernews
Amazon is basically building "Manna" for their warehouses:
[http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

------
thefounder
At least there won't be any gender/race bias.

~~~
sagebird
Not necessarily. If it fired people who listen to rap music while they worked,
would it be racist? Some might argue— no— because it also fired white people
who listen to rap. But it would be a rather obvious discriminatory practice.
Now we must use our imaginations to consider less direct examples of the same
phenomenon. For what it’s worth, I have no reason to believe that amazon is
not an equal opportunity human soul extraction and disposal system.

~~~
scarface74
I get your point, but I’m going to do a “well actually” anyway....

The majority of people who buy rap are White.

[https://genius.com/discussions/281920-The-majority-of-hip-
ho...](https://genius.com/discussions/281920-The-majority-of-hip-hop-
listeners-are-white)

~~~
hoseja
How does that say anything about people who _listen_ to rap, as opposed about
people who _purchase music_?

~~~
scarface74
People are buying music and not listening to it? Right now, the top steaming
artist is Drake.

------
vbuwivbiu
this sort of thing has to stop

------
vbuwivbiu
tips on avoiding Amazon ?

------
Sahhaese
This sounds like it would be illegal in Europe because it falls foul of
"automated decision making".

Article 22 of the GDPR:

> The data subject shall have the right not to be subject to a decision based
> solely on automated processing, including profiling, which produces legal
> effects concerning him or her or similarly significantly affects him or her.

~~~
caymanjim
Does the GDPR have anything to do with employment law? Seems unlikely.

~~~
krageon
Of course the GDPR applies to a company's employees. They don't stop being
people just because they are also employed.

------
benj111
Is this legal? Can a computer have standing to terminate a contract? Can a
computer enter in to a legal contract?

Edit: High frequency trading would seem to suggest it is? Is there nominally
supposed to be a human in the loop?

~~~
Retra
Computers don't need standing, they act on their controllers' behalf.

~~~
benj111
There's a limit to that somewhere though? There's some minimum input that the
controller needs to put in. If Outlook took it upon itself to send "you're
hired" emails to all applicants for a job, that wouldn't be legally binding
right?

I suspect the line isn't where I would _like_ it to be in this situation
though. Thinking about a generalised rule, requiring the counterparty be human
if the original party is human? That seems reasonable and workable?

~~~
Retra
There doesn't need to be _any_ rule, because computers simply don't make
decisions that have legal relevance. Nothing a computer does is legally
binding; things humans do using computers may be. Computers only facilitate
things that humans do. If Outlook sends "you're hired" emails, it is legally
binding if its controller intended to enter into a contract, and not if it was
an error or accident. You don't have to consider the behavior of the computer
at all when deciding legal ramifications.

~~~
benj111
"because computers simply don't make decisions that have legal relevance"

The computer is automatically firing people, that seems like legal relevance
to me. It is making the decision (on some level) without human input.

High frequency traders buy and sell without human interaction. Is that not
another example?

If there were an error, as with the Outlook example, there was absolutely no
human input, so obviously there wasn't intent, therefore it isn't legally
binding.

There is a continuum between a human doing everything, and a human doing
nothing. At some point a legal line is crossed. On one side the computer is
following a humans instructions, on the other it is working independently.
Where is that legal line, what happens if a computer enters into a contract
when working independently?

~~~
Retra
No computer runs without human input. My computer isn't firing people right
now. Why? Because I didn't set it up to do so.

------
lenkite
Utterly horrifying. No better than terrible slavery - while Bezos travels by
private jet and enjoys his luxury super-yacht

[http://superyachtmag.com/2017/08/06/456-foot-lurssen-
superya...](http://superyachtmag.com/2017/08/06/456-foot-lurssen-superyacht-
project-redwood-on-track-for-delivery-in-2019/)

~~~
donatj
I mean it’s certainly dehumanizing but... they’re not being whipped to death
after working endlessly in the hot sun. I’m not saying it’s not awful working
conditions, but the ability to leave alone makes it better than slavery.

~~~
lenkite
You are right. My apologies - I should have said: "just a bit better than
slavery".

~~~
omginternets
No, you could have said "at least it's not slavery".

I empathize with your outrage, but you're being hyperbolic. I think you should
avoid this because it's a good way of discrediting your position.

