The Amazon Pledge: Not Just Innovation in the New Economy

We must ensure that "efficiency" in the New Economy is not achieved through worker exploitation

Published in the Hindustan Times

The recent incident at an Amazon warehouse in Haryana, where workers were herded into a pledge to forego breaks until meeting targets, has ignited widespread outrage - and rightly so. Amazon's response - admitting to "lapses" while labeling this an "isolated" incident and swiftly disciplining a supervisor - is a textbook example of PR-driven damage control designed to deflect attention and evade accountability.

The testimony of a woman worker at the facility, as reported in news reports, cuts through Amazon's corporate-speak. She revealed that on the day of the incident, workers struggled to meet a higher-than-usual target, possibly due to a sale event requiring products to be moved to a different warehouse on the same day. This account exposes the systemic nature of the problem, rooted in Amazon's operational demands rather than the misguided actions of a single supervisor. 

By scapegoating a lower-level supervisor, Amazon attempts to sidestep the glaring structural issue at hand: the crushing pressure of fulfilling untenable top-down targets imposed on workers.

Amazon's track record speaks for itself. Just last month, the company was slapped with a nearly $6 million fine by the California Labour Commissioner for an almost identical issue. The company was found violating California labor standards by relying on a peer evaluation system that "exposes workers to increased pressure to work faster [which] can lead to higher injury rates and other violations by forcing workers to skip breaks". This comes on the heels of Amazon's earlier false denials about working conditions where some of its drivers in the United States were forced to urinate in bottles. If these labour violations can happen in the United States, it should be unsurprising that the Amazon India Workers Association (AIWA) has reported that working conditions after this incident came to light remain dire, with persistent complaints of insufficient facilities and excessive hours.

At the same time, it is crucial to note that this issue is not unique to Amazon especially in India. Whether it's warehouse workers at Amazon or drivers or delivery workers for quick commerce apps, a common thread emerges: the relentless pursuit of efficiency and profit at the expense of worker wellbeing. High unemployment coupled with lack of job security and the pressure to meet unrealistic targets has led to the erosion of worker rights across the e-commerce and gig economy sectors. Before the Amazon incident, there were news reports of the ill health-effects of Delhi’s brutal heat on quick commerce delivery workers. Gig workers across services have mobilised in protest against top-down arbitrary measures and lack of grievance redress.

These incidents force us to confront uncomfortable truths about the new economy. Once revered for their innovation and internet-enabled scale, tech companies are increasingly revealing a darker side. The efficiency and productivity gains of many of these tech companies are not solely the fruits of innovation, but also of exploitation. In these cases, technology often provides a veneer for the stark power imbalance in the new economy that facilitates this exploitation. While Amazon's owner ranks among the world's wealthiest individuals, and the founder of an Indian quick commerce company boasts of reaching a Rs 20,000 crore valuation in just three years, it's clear that these astronomical riches are not solely the product of innovation and efficiency, but also of worker exploitation.

These issues are too complex for a simple bulleted list of solutions. However, we can draw crucial lessons from the contrasting responses in California and India. The gig economy, touted as the future of work, often operates in a regulatory gray area, leaving workers vulnerable to exploitation facilitated by opacity. As a first step, we urgently need transparency. Clear, publicly available data on labor productivity expectations, working conditions, and surge capacity management is essential. These expectations of labour productivity should be vetted to ensure that they do not impede compliance with basic employee rights such as meals, rest periods, and access to bathroom facilities. 

The history of repeated violations followed by denials and scapegoating of low-level employees makes it clear that companies are unlikely to reform on their own. We thus need robust regulation which mandates this transparency and gives workers a fighting chance in an extremely skewed power equation. Companies above a certain employee threshold must be subject to third-party audits to verify on-ground realities.

Finally, we need a fundamental shift in corporate culture. The relentless pursuit of efficiency and profit maximization cannot come at the cost of basic human dignity. Companies must internalize that worker welfare is not just a compliance issue but a fundamental aspect of sustainable business practices. This shift requires more than policy changes – it demands a reevaluation of how we measure corporate success. It's time to incorporate metrics of worker well-being and fair labor practices into our assessments of corporate performance. Only then can we hope to build an economy that truly works for all.

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