"Fired after just one week if the algorithm deems us not sufficiently productive": this was the alarm raised by Amazon worker representatives during a hearing in the European Parliament.
"There is an algorithm in Amazon's warehouses that calculates how many packages are processed by each worker and anyone who remains below average is fired," said Mroz Agnieska, a Polish worker at an Amazon sorting center.
"The average is calculated monthly so the faster you work, the more difficulty you put your colleagues in" explained the worker.
"If a worker is too slow she receives a negative evaluation, an unappealable note given by the algorithm that manages the staff", added Mroz.
Also present was the representative of the German trade union confederation Verdi, Corinna Gross Corinna who explained how in Germany "Amazon refuses to conclude a collective agreement, refusing to sit at the negotiating table".
Absent in the chamber were the representatives of the American online shopping giant, "they felt that the date offered was not convenient for them to send a representative to this discussion", explained the president of the Labor commission of the Eurochamber, the Romanian liberal Dragos Pislaru "it's a shame such a large group he could have found someone."
"Rights have a lot to benefit from technology but what we heard this morning gives reasons instead for workers' fears towards digitalisation. We have heard that the boundary between private life and work is becoming thinner and technology thus risks being a way of depriving workers of their rights" , commented the director of the Labor DGs of the EU Commission Max Uebe.
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