Automation and robotics. Two major themes that dominate working life. Advocates of artificial intelligence believe it is an opportunity for the new economy and new jobs. On the other hand, opponents think that robots will cause job losses. And in some companies their fears may already be coming true ...
The issue of robotisation is discussed daily. Is it a forward or backward step? People working in production, for example, often worry about their jobs. Evidence of this may be a case from Amazon in America.
The fact that employees in the company's distribution centres have difficult conditions and a strict regime in which they have to meet high quotas even faster and flawlessly has long been common knowledge. But now there is a novelty in the Amazon world that may be worrying and even alarming for other companies.
A statement by Amazon indicates that it is a computer, not the supervisor, deciding on the dismissal of workers. The robot measures the personal performance of employees, who are under scrutiny throughout their working hours. According to certain algorithms, the machine evaluates the extent to which workers have failed in their duties, for which they are at best reprimanded and at worst dismissed.
The worst variation was experienced by the unfairly dismissed Barbara Duvall, who is now suing Amazon. The firm is defending itself on the grounds that the employee was not dismissed by a person, but by a computer whose decision is automatically generated and not influenced by the manager. The manager may intervene only if a dismissal is unjustified.
"About three hundred employees have been dismissed in this way (between August 2017 and September 2018) at our distribution centre in Baltimore," said a spokesperson for Amazon.
Workers - robots
Amazon's economy is based on continuous growth. Every year the company has to increase its market share; otherwise share prices and investors' expectations decline. For this reason, workers are put under enormous pressure regarding pace and efficiency. Workers have complained in the past that they were being treated "like robots". But the company knows this too.
"The most versatile machine we have is a human being. Therefore we need to use human labour responsibly," stated Amazon's vice-president for Europe four years ago.
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