The US-concern Amazon is a winner in this crisis. Not being effected by the closed retailstores, more and more shipments are sent through the whole world.
The success of the company has a lot to do with the reckless treatment of their workers. Their work processes and movements are closely watched - how many articles are picked up, how often is a toilet break taken etc. Each year it gets determined if the work is satisfactory to the exploiter, which cynically is called “release day”. Everyone who did not meet the expectations even if only by a little bit, is fired. To increase and monitor work-productivity and to leave the loss of the job as a constant threat, amazon concocted a insidious system. It begins with the contracts give to workers are temporary ones for a year. During shifts every worker is closely recorded digitally. If a worker goes to the toilet outside of the break few times, he has to justify himself to his manager. On “release day” the workers with the lowest scores are fired, which is not only dramatic for the ones being fired, but is also a threat to those who are trying to keep their jobs, as this increases the expected work step by step. Someone who may be in the middle today may tomorrow be thought of as slow and becomes a target for being fired.
These techniques of Amazon will inspire others or have already done that. Their competors, who already are struggeling to keep up, will use similar methods to suppress labourcost to comparable levels to compete. The technical requirements for this are already being demanded from many sites under the guise of „industry 4.0“.
