Amazon exec gets ripped to shreds by Labour MPs over working conditions in select committee hearing

I don't want you to come out on the individual case because that's a cop-out of an answer I want you to answer the question based on the example the idea that your practices are creating safer workplaces is something which is up for dispute I'd be very interested to deal with Trade union sit in this where where is their voice have you carried out any analysis as to how automation has benefited productivity and then can you also perhaps tell me how do you make sure that that the benefits of that productivity I shared with your Workforce uh absolutely so the again the use of automation uh or robotics in in our fulfillment centers uh is is not designed to replace or or automate out jobs um we target um mundane or repetitive or physically or mental difficulties has it done that has it actually you know jobs are now done by machines and programs that wants them by human beings that's presumably happened uh albeit not the design yeah I would suggest tasks uh within a function might be done there are over 60 uh different human-led functions in a given fulfillment center um and you know there's been some press about the number of packages that will be touched by automation um you know getting closer to 100 what I would suggest to you is the number of packages that are not touched by humans will continue to be at zero percent uh that this is still a critical part of the value chain um in terms of improving outcomes for people what we see is an improvement in again safety the reduction of things like repetitive motion injuries or musculoskeletal disorders improvements in employee retention the jobs are are more sustainable in an industry where candidly Logistics warehousing and transportation has been subject to to high attrition we continue to perform better than industry on that um and what my colleagues suggested about again the importance of of transparency the the mental or or physical stress that get can be present working alongside technology what we see is when we have a candid conversation when we have an open dialogue with our people and we take feedback from them and change systems based on that input to improve how the systems work with them that that serves to mitigate a significant part of that you employ what 70 000 people you talked about that's right now are those people directly in your employee or are these people who are gig workers platform workers what's the proportion or is that on top of all 70 000 people that I mentioned are directly employed the majority of those will be in our uh in our operations but your business model depends upon an army of people delivering the goods for you who are not directly in your employer is that right uh that's correct well when we uh deliver you're referring to the The Last Mile the the last mile delivery component so we do work with a range of Transportation delivery companies from big companies like Royal Mail or multinational like UPS we also work with our delivery service provider program which is small medium-sized delivery and Courier businesses that that leverage Amazon technology um but but those drivers are are not employed by Amazon yeah so so the The Last Mile the the actual last bit that upon which your whole business model uh depends is out with your responsibilities albeit totally within your control I mean you control every element of that person's job I've been out with Amazon an Amazon driver and I was very interested in your remarks around transparency and Tech with purpose and people being at the center of it do you think that those people that they're at the heart of of the people you're thinking about or are they not your concern well of course there are concerns uh our delivery drivers again are working through uh Delivery Service Partners who can choose to use Amazon technology or not use Amazon technology by providing tools like routing software uh or um you know dynamic systems that allow them to make changes on the Fly that provides a support line for those drivers uh directly back to us yeah on that very point I mean the driver I was out with he was very frustrated not only just having to to meander through the lanes and narrow Hollywood seeing DPS dpd and Hermes drivers come in the other way clogging up the the roads but in terms of the programming that the Amazon are delivered to him he wasn't able to have any input is to say look this is actually wrong can you please listen to me I do know what I'm talking about but there was no opportunity there's certainly nobody was listening to him and I just I wonder given all of those responsibilities that you set out I'd be very interested to know where trade unions sit in this where where is their voice because you talked about the productivities that you're securing through these processes but I come back to my original question about the benefits being derived for for working people you have responsibilities under ESG of which you'll be very familiar how are you discharging those responsibilities if you don't directly employ the people that you ultimately depend upon first of all let me start by saying I'm sorry that that you had that experience generally that's not consistent with my time out uh on the road for Amazon which I have done both here in Europe and in the United States um the mechanisms to provide feedback uh to Amazon Logistics which is the group that you're referencing are both via the delivery service provider uh directly and that is usually kind of collated by by them or they also have available to them a 24 7 hotline that they can always talk to a human and I think that that the ability to engage a human provide that direct feedback is absolutely vital and having a human in the loop to make those decisions um you know we mentioned the the algorithm did it for us that's never a good enough answer these are decisions that have to be with a human leader that can review can understand the nuances of an individual either in our fulfillment operations or out on the road those individual experiences and and have the human empathy and Leadership that that is so important you know okay well I I just I'm struggling to understand how you can apply these standards of behaviors but you're not even in the room if you're not in that relationship of employer employee it's something that you can um abrogate your responsibilities for and your business depends upon it don't you think there's a direct contradiction in in that model uh I I do not I mean we're very proud of the delivery service provider uh program which which has allowed uh thousands of uh small delivery companies to grow their business and and employ new uh drivers and and and and grow their Workforce okay where yep okay if moving on to issues the the one of the big issues that concerned people in this space is the development Technologies around surveillance and we've heard a lot said about that thus far um but there's a couple of points to this I mean you know I'm I don't I didn't really think I got much of an answer about my questions about Trade union recognition whether they were uh collective bargaining Arrangements going on how widespread was that you know I'd be interested to hear from you on that and whether Amazon deploys unionization heat Maps as has happened in the United States to see where the trade unions are whether it's a pro-union sentiment do those Technologies exist within um Amazon in the UK are those being deployed here no and I will preface this by saying I'm not an employee relations expert in the UK but but the answer is no we're not um tracking Union activity or or or um the heat map that you suggested that that's not something that that's to put here um well just pushing a little bit on this on the technology on the surveillance issues the dcms committee did pursue this question at very recently in earlier this month um and it was Dr Matthew Cole you may have heard from the fair work project told the committee that the overwhelmingly the evidence shows that the technologies that Amazon uses are not empowering they lead to overwork extreme stress and anxiety and there have been issues with joints and health problems he went on to say happier workers are more productive workers but when you have the level of surveillance and control Amazon is capable of it's less concerned with that so we hear it about people being trapped their behavior is being tracked I I'd like you to tell us a little bit about that but ultimately I wanted to I want you to answer tell me who owns that data because you know that ultimately is about another human being about their behaviors and decisions are made about their lives with the benefit of that data who owns it who has access to it so how are you responding to those challenges if I could take uh the first uh Point uh regarding Dr Cole's testimony and I I I'll start by saying we agree that um unhappy or or stressful workers or overworked um is is not a recipe for a productive workplace um we know that um the best uh in again in our field operations and fulfillment centers but this holds true with throughout Amazon the the best person in an operation is somebody who's happy with their job engaged sees a future there and and is healthy what's even better than that person is that person backed up with with great technology and that's why we deploy uh technology and fulfillment centers for example that improves um the uh or reduces the need to manually scan items where we can do that with something like computer vision um what we're not doing is seeking to monitor or surveil our people I mean that's um their privacy is something that we respect I mean we do have things like CCTV at the entrance to the building but when someone is is working in a fulfillment center when they're a station the focus of the the software and Hardware that we've been discussing is on the goods it's it's not on on the people themselves you know on your point about data and and this is a another very important point I mean we have we do collect and and keep data that is legally required a NEX of Canon employment information and things like that um we do also keep things like performance data as we you know work with people and identify areas where we're we need to improve but that data is accessible to those people and they can request with us or see it in uh through our internal system we have online tools that are made available to every single employee and they all have access to that data thank you Chad um I think that's probably enough for me I just check something I think you just said to the committee that the collection of data was based on your goods not your people that's that's not quite right is it I'm sorry you just said to the committee that your collection of data presumably in a warehouse was focused on the goods the boxes of stuff Europe shipping out as opposed to your people people who are packing things and moving them around I just want to check that's not that's not actually correct is it uh that is correct I mean the the systems that are deployed the primary purpose of the systems is things like um monitoring the the productivity of the network that the health of the network so that we can ensure that we're planning correctly and Optima matching capacity and demand so that you know even our busiest time of the year the Fulfillment center will look about as it does in in July or March secondarily we we use these systems for things like inventory control like any retailer would um but the the point about um looking at performance that's not where we focus when we deploy these systems they're they're not primarily or even secondarily to identify under performers and performance related feedback is really focused on safety and what we would consider internally quality not on things like speed or or productivity so let me give you an example so I represent a constituency that has one large Amazon fulfillment center and another one just on the border as a couple of years ago as a constituent he was 63 he was working with you just to fill his time before his pension and he came to see me in my surgery to tell me that I don't know if there's a wristband or a device or a tablet we had some kits that basically told him he wasn't packing things quickly enough and he'd had two strikes already and he had to go and see his productivity manager so he went to go and see the productivity manager and the productivity manager said why are you not packing things more quickly the system is telling us you're not being productive enough and he said I'm 63. he said I'm working as quickly as I can pretty cold in here I can't go any quicker now if you were to take that example outside of the kind of Technology discussion you'd have some real concerns around age discrimination but this was your technology tracking that work as productivity in packing that is surveilling the worker isn't it not the goods uh I'm not familiar with that particular example but I don't want you to come out on the individual case because that's a cop-out of an answer I want you to answer the question based on the example do you track the productivity of your workers in your warehouses yes or no yes so what you just said to the committee that you don't track the worker is not true is it what I said was the systems are not focused on tracking individual workers what do you mean by Focus uh that their primary purpose is not to to track individual productivity you understand from the worker perspective if they've got a bit of kits or a device that's saying you need to be quicker quicker quicker all of the time from the workers perspective that feels like the focus is on them doesn't it not because do you recognize that we do and since that you suggested this a couple years ago we have made changes in response to employee feedback on on how those uh metrics are are assessed as I said early in the tenure when you're starting out at Amazon productivity is is not a factor in performance evaluation we focus on safety uh whether that's um you know he told me he was going to be fired if he had three strikes on his productivity tracking are you saying that's not Amazon policy uh the number of performance related um folk folks that leave the company is a very very small minority that is not where we focus and if there are issues where someone is is having uh performance related issues we want to understand why and and how we can help them or maybe that's not the right function for them to be performing within the Fulfillment center it's really important that you answer the question I'm asking you I asked you if someone has three productivity kind of flags on the system can they be fired at that point uh I I mean yes yeah okay what you just answered when I asked you that question before was something entirely different now you're giving me the actual answer to my question do you not recognize that's a problem there's an algorithm here tracking a human worker the computer assistant that's saying this person's not quick enough which to be fair to him the guy was 63. uh and then you were going to sack him based on what the algorithm decided was whether he was productive or not that's an issue isn't it but but to be clear the algorithm is is not making those decisions let me tell you so the conversation that he had with his productivity manager was well the system told me you're not being productive enough that's not a human in the loop that's a human telling another human what the computer told him but well the the important thing is that this is an ongoing conversation between the manager uh between on-site human resources which are there and and uh between the employee where we identify issues with performance and again um we would recommend that we uh perform a different function within the Fulfillment center again as I mentioned there are over 60 and and I've worked in fulfillment centers early in my time at Amazon um of course there are performance um benchmarks that we set based on similar groups of of people that are not constantly ratcheted up that's not a a practice that we engage in it is self-defeating and uneconomical to create an environment where people feel like they're constantly being ratcheted up we have to continue to work with with our employees identify areas where we need to make changes where we can improve uh and if again as I said if the issue is performance at a specific function uh the vast majority of the time what happens is uh that employee will be will be asked to perform a different function or they can go to HR at any given time and raise these concerns directly with them my constituent didn't feel like that I'm afraid um Charlotte Nichols please thank you chair and by I'm just 17 and August 2018 about 300 workers were let go at its Baltimore warehouse for what the company called productivity reasons this was more than 10 of the workforce the company's lawyer wrote that and I quote Amazon consistently terminates fulfillment center Associates for failing to repeatedly meet the standardized productivity rate end Quay was that productivity rate based on AI or other forms of algorithmic working no so Amazon extensively uses AI for other purposes why don't you use it for warehouse Performance Management uh well and isn't that at odds with the answer that you just gave to our chair moments ago no the the software that's that's deployed in in a fulfillment center uh is not designed to set benchmarks independently or automatically these are benchmarks that are set based on achievable performance levels based on historical performance and that are reviewed by human leaders uh before they're put in place it is not independently or automated uh from a decision standpoint okay so analysis shows that that month to Amazon Fulfillment centers there's almost a 50 increase between October and November every year over the last five years it seems to me uh with an Amazon fulfillment center in my constituency that there are human beings being pushed beyond the limits of Endurance by productivity targets set at least in part by robots you worked in a senior role for Amazon in the Washington Baltimore area while the layoffs that I discussed earlier were taking place do you feel personally conflicted about more than a tenth of the workforce being laid off for productivity reasons I I did not work in the the Washington area at that time I think I was based in Seattle in 2017 um but I'm not familiar specifically with the case that that you're raising what I can tell you again is that performance related um decisions are are the very small minority of of people that leave the company that that's a uh and again it's not a decision that's made in real time it's not as if you know you've had a bad day and and that's what the computer spits out it this is a discussion that is ongoing uh with the human manager to identify areas where uh you can improve performance and we we recognize that um warehousing jobs are not for everyone uh but what we've been able to accomplish through the deployment technology is an environment that is significantly safer than industry and has significantly better retention rates than industry and I think it's clear from what I said about ambulance call outs at UK Amazon Fulfillment centers compared to other similar sized Logistics firms within the UK that the idea that your practices are creating safer workplaces is something which is up for dispute but in any case based on the discussion that we've been having here and the well-publicized labor problems within Amazon in the UK including spontaneous walkouts earlier this year with concerns over safety with GMB on the next panel representing workers in Amazon and warehouses and career services and Prospects on the panel representing Tech workers do you think that it might be time that Amazon recognized a Trade union and worked with trade unions to resolve some of these issues well again I'm not an expert in employee relations here in the UK what I'll tell you is we respect the right of our employees to join a union we have always supported that right and at this time no union represents an Amazon site in the UK but we are entirely supportive of of our people's uh right to to join the Trade union you can't there is no respect for somebody's right to John Trade union is is immaterial it's it's their inalienable right your respect to it is is irrelevant it's your ability to recognize third unions and their ability to bargain with you on a collective basis that the sorry uh chair but uh but that's surely that's the key point that you're not answering I'm I'm sorry shouldn't I think what my colleague is saying is that um workers in the UK have a right to join a trade Union immaterial of whether that's something that Amazon supports or doesn't our question is about whether Amazon should take the proactive step to recognize those trade unions and to collectively bargain with them in order to resolve some of the issues that we've been talking about today with Amazon and the way that technology is deployed within its workplaces in the hope that you know some of these issues might be actually resolved we'd welcome that and I I'm not an expert in in UK employment law um but where uh we can work uh directly with our people which is which is what we've been doing um we will continue to do that and if uh a Workforce or a site is is represented by Jim uh by any Trade Union uh then we're happy to have that conversation that's just not the case today I'm sure that GMB colleagues on the next panel will be very happy to hear that you're pleased to talk with them in future as I know there's a number of outstanding issues at your warehouses in the UK

Channel: PoliticsJOE

Views: 281,363

Keywords: Politics, UK politics, British politics, Parliament, Government, Westminster, Labour, Amazon, Workers' rights, Worker, Jeff Bezos, Union, Tory, Conservative, House of Commons, Surveillance

Id: Frgi_bf3UfU

Length: 24min 53sec (1493 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2022