Fairwork Amazon Report 2024: How is AI Transforming the Warehouse Sector

Описание: Technologies AI and robotics are meant to improve efficiency and allow for the ever-faster delivery of consumer goods from Amazon warehouses; but at what cost?

For the launch of a new report from Fairwork and the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) report authors Funda Ustek Spilda, Lola Brittain, and Callum Cant offer their insights into the AI-induced transformation of the warehouse sector.

The new report, "Fairwork Amazon Report 2024: Transformation of the Warehouse Sector through AI" is based on in-depth research into the human impacts of the ever-faster delivery of consumer goods that is driving automation within and across Amazon UK’s vastly complex supply chain. Although technologies like AI and robotics are meant to improve efficiency and create a better work environment, this research shows that instead, workers are experiencing work intensification, loss of control in the work process and mental and physical risks.

Its key findings across the five Fairwork Principles include:

1. Fair Pay – The productivity gains associated with automation are not being redistributed to Amazon warehouse workers. Associates (as Amazon UK refers to them) emphasised remuneration does not reflect the effort and strain that they feel the job requires and is inadequate relative to living costs. Many regularly have to work 60+ hour weeks or moonlight in second jobs to be able to make ends meet.

2. Fair Conditions – Pace-based demands have a significant impact on the physical and mental health of Amazon associates. Interviewees described feeling “demoralised”, “hopeless” and “very, very stressed”. At robotic sites, mental health risks were also raised because of the isolation experienced when working at fixed workstations, described as “a kind of cage”.

3. Fair Contracts – Fixed-term associates appear to be under more pressure to work fast and hit performance targets, but the pace of work established by those striving for permanent status had the effect of raising the overall expected pace of work on the warehouse floor. Some workers fear automation-driven job losses in the longer term due to the integration of robotics.

4. Fair Management – The refined system of algorithmic management and worker surveillance used on warehouse floors leaves workers with very little latitude for decision-making.

5. Fair Representation – Although issues related to fair representation predate the deployment of AI and robotics in Amazon warehouses, these technologies have left workers feeling more isolated; making collective voice important. On 26 April 2024, during the writing of this report, GMB union announced that they have filed legal proceedings against Amazon in response to its anti-union drive.