Amazon still seems to want to turn workers into robots – Here’s a better way forward

Strikes by hundreds of Amazon workers at the company’s Coventry warehouse in the English Midlands have addressed a number of work problems in today’s high-tech society. While the focus is mainly on wages, workers are pushing back with extended working hours and automated monitoring systems that calculate the time they spend on each task as well as the time it takes to go to the bathroom. It all contributes to a stressful and high-pressure work environment – ​​plus more accidents.

We have much to learn from this painful situation about the future of work and technology. One side, by Amazon the whole-employment model runs counter to the common assumption that technology destroys jobs. Equally, however, the company’s hiring practices show how automation can make the workplace suffocating, forcing workers to become more like robots.

The pessimistic predictions about the job threat posed by technology are nothing new. A frequently cited study published in 2013 predicted that up to 47% of jobs in the United States would be eliminated due to automation over a 20-year period. Now that we are halfway there, jobs in the US are still plentiful and unemployment is low. Similarly, there is evidence from Germany that the use of robots does not affect total employment.

Across the G7, employment has been well maintained. Aside from a blip due to COVID, the overall unemployment rate has declined over the past decade even though automation and robotics are slowly becoming more important to the workplace. The fact is that paid employment has existed thanks to technological progress for centuries.

G7 unemployment rate 2005-21

As Amazon’s example shows, the bigger threat from technology is almost certainly the quality of jobs. This threat should worry us as we think about the current and future ways of using and implementing technology in the workplace.

Re-imagining Automation In a recent article, I laid out some of the fundamentals regarding the goals behind automation for society as a whole.

First, automation will help drive more meaningful work. In discussions about the future of work, the fear of job loss is often the starting point for the argument that workers’ wages will need to be replaced with a universal basic income. But this considers work purely as a tool, only in pursuit of income. Work is also important to who we are and can be.

When you realize these intrinsic benefits to doing a job, it’s important to see technology not as a way to eliminate work but to make it better. This means automating the least appealing aspects of the job. Technology should complement labor to enliven and engage workers. You can see potential in areas as diverse as agriculture, where robots can replace the work of humans harvesting produce, and medicine, where they can be used to transport things like waste. healthcare around the hospital.

Second, automation will make it possible for people to spend more time at work. This does not contradict the idea that work benefits our health but rather acknowledges that a good life requires experiencing rewarding activities on and off work. Automation will give us more time to achieve happiness at work and play.

Reality

Unfortunately, these goals are often not a priority with technological progress. This stems from the fact that employees are less talkative about its nature and direction than employers, which explains why automation worries many workers.

As workers are told more, motivation can change. Take Germany, for example, where there is evidence that the use of robots has actually improved workers’ chances of job retention. The presence of strong labor councils and labor unions in Germany seems to be a large part of the explanation.

This collaborative approach appears to have helped create an environment that protects jobs while allowing workers to upskill to adapt to technological change. It is no coincidence that Germany has the second lowest unemployment rate in the G7.

Amazon has introduced robots over the past decade to make their warehouses more efficient. It seems likely that this scale will be expanded over the next few years, although the company insists this is not a job cut.

Time will tell in that regard, but it’s hard to trust Amazon’s approach to technology when the interests of workers seem so reliant on the company’s interests. In parallel with the protests in the UK, Amazon workers in places like the US and Germany are also fighting against its conditions.

By 2022, Amazon has agreed to create a European labor council, which has representatives of workers from 35 countries including the UK and is consulted on the company’s cross-border issues. company. But council activity is quite limited, while the company’s general reluctance to engage with unions suggests that warehouse workers are still struggling to achieve their benefits.

Ultimately, technology will only serve workers if it is democratized. If workers and society, not big tech companies like Amazon, are to benefit from automation, they need to have a greater influence and stake in it. If this can be achieved, less and better work is still the prize.