Tech Won't Save Us - Amazon’s Vigorous Opposition to Unions w/ Lauren Kaori Gurley

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

Paris Marx is joined by Lauren Kaori Gurley to discuss how Amazon surveils workers to stop them from organizing, the difficult working conditions in warehouses and for delivery drivers, and whether Jeff Bezos become Executive Chair will change anything.Lauren Kaori Gurley is a labor reporter at Motherboard/Vice. Follow Lauren on Twitter as @LaurenKGurley.Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.Find out more about Harbinger Media Network at harbingermedianetwork.com.Also mentioned in this episode:Lauren wrote about how Amazon’s Global Security Operations Center has a massive surveillance operation involving Pinkertons, and how the company monitors Facebook groups and internal listservs. She also spoke to workers about how they felt about it.Paris wrote that Jeff Bezos’ legacy as CEO is one of brutal exploitation and that can’t be forgotten.Ken Loach’s Sorry We Missed You shows how the gig economy ruins people’s lives.During the pandemic, there were Amazon walkouts across the United States and global protests during the pandemic. Workers in Bessemer, Alabama are also voting on unionization.Amazon stole delivery drivers’ tips and has been forced to repay them $61.7 million.Support the show

One thing that is very clear is that Amazon will do anything in its power and pay any amount of money to keep unions out of its warehouses. Hello and welcome to Tech Won't Save Us. I'm your host, Paris Marks, and this week my guest is Lauren Kaori Gurley. Lauren is a labor reporter at Motherboard, which is part of Vice, where she spends a lot of time covering how gig workers, Amazon warehouse workers, and other tech workers are fighting for their rights. On this week's episode, we react to the news that Jeff Bezos is stepping down as CEO to become the executive chair of Amazon and what that means for workers at the company who have spent so many years dealing with the exploitative working conditions that he's overseen. Amazon workers have reported having to skip bathroom breaks and being under constant surveillance. Reports like the one by Will Evans,

who came on the podcast a few months ago, show that injuries at Amazon are more than double the industry average and even higher in warehouses where it's using its Kiva robot system. Jeff Bezos built a sprawling empire, a company that has its hands in many different sectors of the economy and has become one of the key tech monopolies of the modern times. And while Amazon has brought great wealth to Bezos himself and to many Amazon shareholders, that wealth was built on the back of workers who do not see the same kind of benefits, but rather are treated in this really dehumanizing way. Even as Bezos steps aside, it's unlikely that those things are going

to change anytime soon. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, a group of left-wing podcasts that are made in Canada, and you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you like this conversation, make sure to leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and share it with any friends, colleagues, or on social media to encourage more people to listen. And if you want to support the work that I put into making this podcast every week, you can join supporters like Paula Gardo-Perez, Jason Prado, and Mike Lewis by going to patreon.com slash techwontsaveus and becoming a supporter. Thanks so much and enjoy the conversation. Lauren, welcome to Tech Won't Save Us.

Hey Perez, thank you for having me on. It's great to speak with you because you've done so much reporting, not just on labor issues at Amazon, but at so many other tech companies and just companies in general, retail and other sectors. So February 2nd, we got the news that Jeff Bezos had announced he is going to, I guess, step down as CEO, but he's going to take up the role of executive chair at Amazon, which seems to suggest that he's still going to have power and the ability to make important decisions, but it's just going to kind of step out of the limelight to a certain degree and give the CEO chair to someone else. So just before we get started in digging into, you know, what Jeff

Bezos has done at Amazon, and, you know, the effects of that on workers in particular, you know, what was your reaction when you heard this news? I think at first, I was shocked because I thought this day would never come, especially not, you know, this year or anything. He's still pretty young and seems like a control freak and wants to sort of micromanage every single part of this company that has so many different parts to it. But you know, at the same time, I don't someone was mentioning in my company slack, like is this sort of like a Putin situation where like, Putin steps down and becomes prime minister, but it's really just like, actually, and still in control, and then like, wants to be president again, like,

you know, a few years later, whatever. That might be the case. Like, I don't see him relinquishing that much power. But I also don't really know how important that is. Like, I think that the course that Amazon is on right now is isn't going to change in that course, meaning like, in terms of what I cover, I'm a labor reporter. So sort of expanding its logistics and sort of warehouse industry across the world. So not just the United States, but you know, throughout Latin America, Asia, the Middle East, I believe they don't have presence in Africa. But yeah, I don't see any of that changing. I don't know that much about Andy Jassy, the new CEO, who is currently the CEO of Amazon Web Services. But from my understanding, he's pretty much on the same page and has the same ruthless,

cutthroat capitalist mentality that Bezos has been known for. That said, I do think that Bezos' legacy is important. I mean, he created Amazon, or what it is like today, which is the second largest employer in the United States. And that has really shaped working conditions. As this huge employer, hundreds of thousands of people, that impacts not just those hundreds of thousands of people, that impacts not just, you know, those hundreds of thousands of people working for Amazon, but the rest of its competitors and like how Walmart and Target are treating their warehouse workers, like Amazon is setting a standard and has a very strong sort of like anti-union, anti-labor perspective that I think trickles down throughout the rest of the industry and gives permission to other employers to act the same way. So I'm not sure it's that big of a deal. But what he's done has been a big deal.

Absolutely. I completely agree. Someone in the Discord chat of the podcast actually made the same comparison to Putin as I guess in your black channel. Yeah. But like, I agree with you. Like, I don't think it, I don't think we can expect Andy Jassy to make any significant changes in the direction of Amazon, right? Someone like Jeff Bezos, it doesn't seem would have given up that control for someone to completely like start accepting unions or, you know, decide that facial recognition or surveillance or working with the military is not something that Amazon wants to pursue any longer. So it makes perfect sense that his successor would continue the vision that he has built into this company that he started back in 1994 in Washington state and has grown to this kind of giant on the backs of all of these workers who,

you know, do the essential work of getting the packages to the customers who order them and so much else that goes on in that massive sprawling company. And that's another piece of that that I wanted to ask you about, right? Because Amazon did start as an online book marketplace or bookseller, however you want to put it. Did it start in a garage? I can't remember. Technically, it started in a garage. But from what I hear, it only started in a garage because he bought a house that had a garage so he could say it started in a garage.

Okay. Good to know. it started in a garage. So I guess technically, but I hear it's more PR spin than exactly how that worked out. And of course, the attractiveness of Washington State is often positioned as because that is where Microsoft was. But what is often left out of that retelling is how Washington State has no state personal income tax, no state corporate income tax. And at the time, Amazon as a company doing sales online only had to charge sales tax in the state that it was located in. So to the 5 million plus people in Washington state, and could then sell sales tax free to the other 260 million plus Americans. And obviously,

you know, the number of Americans has since grown and they do charge sales tax now. They only gave up on that fight in 2017. So that's a relatively recent thing. But the aspect of this I want to ask you about is how it kind of started as this bookseller and then sprawled into this really massive company that kind of has its tentacles into so many different industries. First, what do you make of its ability to grow in that way and how it made that move from this small company to this kind of, you know, as you say, the second largest employer in the United States? And secondly, how does that, I guess, affect how you are able to cover this company because

it is so large and has its fingers into so many different industries? Yeah. I mean, when I was a kid, for sure, I was born in 1992. So I think sometime around, when was Amazon founded? 95? 94, I think. 94? Okay.

But it changed its name in like 95 or 96 too, before it was something else. Oh, right. It wasn't, I can't, it had a funny name, like a bookseller's name. I can't remember. Maybe not. Yeah, I can't remember what it was. I think he wanted to name it Relentless at one point, but I think originally it was something like, I can't remember.

Okay. Okay. Well, we can look that up after but like yeah i mean i remember my dad was an engineer my both my parents are and very into amazon when i was growing up like i remember it was super exciting to order a book on amazon when i was like i don't know must have been like four or five but that was my first introduction to Amazon. Between the early 2000s. And, you know, 20 years later, like it's expanded into like, literally every single part of our lives. I mean, not just Amazon's marketplace has basically anything you can think of. I don't know how

many different types of items they sell. But they're not just doing that themselves. They've sort of wrapped up all these other businesses into their model. So like most small businesses in this country, or many small businesses in this country, or retailers sell their products on Amazon. And so like you said, that makes it extremely hard to cover this thing that is like everything. But from a labor perspective, I think for me, to keep track of everything that's going on. I mean, I definitely have like a Twitter list, and like a bunch of sources. I've been covering Amazon for like a year and a half, that I have built up these relationships over the course of a year and a half. But,

you know, I've sort of figured out where the spots are, where people are organizing, who knows about it, and like, just regularly writing small stories and building relationships, these people like that eventually often work up to bigger stories. But I found most of these people on like, I guess on social media, yeah, on Twitter, on Facebook, I get a lot of my information through tips. So like I get a lot of the stories I write just coming. I mean, I think maybe the stories that we're going to talk about today, but the story about the Pinkertons, the story about Amazon spying on its flex drivers, social media groups, the story about Amazon keeping tabs or spying on its workers' listservs, the story about how Amazon handled the first outbreak in a warehouse and what that looked like. All those stories came from people

who were responding to stories I wrote before that coming in through Signal or a tip line or something like that. So that's one way I get information. But at the same time, I know that workers are extremely well organized in, for example, Minnesota, and in Sacramento, which is in California, and in New York City, and the Staten Island warehouse, and in this one particular part of the south side of Chicago. So I'm regularly keeping track and keeping tabs on what's going on in all of these places. To be honest, I was totally caught off guard when a group of workers in Alabama announced they were unionizing, I believe sometime in November. That was a huge shock to me. I had no idea RDWSU was even running a union drive found there. So like, there's a lot I probably don't know. There are group chats and Facebook, private Facebook groups, formed by Amazon workers of all different types of Amazon workers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers, gig workers, all over the country, like in every sort of spot you can think of. And I like tried to sort of gain access to those. I mean, I won't get in too many systems, because some of them are intentionally private, but it just says a matter of time and just like reaching out to people and being sort of annoying

and trying to talk to people. And yeah, there's a lot that's going on that I don't know about. That makes perfect sense though. And it's fascinating to hear about, you know, your process and getting to know these workers and keeping track of, you know, how everything is going. Like, do you find that it's difficult to sort of figure these things out or that workers kind of want to connect with you? Because I'm sure on some degree, they're also trying to avoid, you know, the company figuring out that they are trying to work together to hopefully, I guess, at one point

make demands to try to improve their work conditions, or at least just to share information about what's going on in their workplace. Right. I mean, depends what you're talking about. So in journalism 101, like one of the things I learned is like one of the best ways to talk to vulnerable people is to go through an organization. So to go through a union, to go through a workers organization to go through some sort of like formal structure that gives the workers some like protection so that the organization can vouch for the worker and say, yeah, this person works for Amazon. And then it can also protect the worker from, you know, retaliation or something like that. So that's sort of what I first learned. But I think there are also a lot

of organizations, unions in particular, that are extremely protective of their workers and are very hesitant to like, connect workers to journalists. Or if that happens, they will want to be on the phone call and sort of micromanage the relationship between the journalist and the source and, you know, maybe even like, approve their quotes or something like that. So it just depends on the organization. Some are very open and like want to have like a relationship to media, some don't. At first, I was like, Oh, it's really hard to just be like, Oh, like, Oh, I want to talk to an Amazon warehouse worker who works in Tennessee, and then like go search around on Facebook, looking for that person and messaging a bunch of people like that rarely works. But when you put an Amazon warehouse worker who works in Tennessee and then like go search around on Facebook looking

for that person and messaging a bunch of people like that rarely works. But when you put out a tip line, I mean, yesterday I wrote a story about how Amazon settled with the federal government $61 million in tips that I had stolen from its gig workers. And I had like 50 gig workers, Amazon Flux gig workers from around the country reach out wanting to share their stories as a response to that story or even being like, can you help me? Like, how do I get this money? Which unfortunately, I don't know. It's not that hard. It's just like reporting on something and just being sort of consistent and not giving up and, you know, staying on a beat that leads to more stories. You're kind of like, oh, I'm going to cover Amazon like once a year. You're a general assignment reporter. I imagine that's more difficult. It's interesting to hear just kind of how that works and how that plays out. But, you know, obviously, when it comes to Amazon workers and, you know, there are Amazon workers who are working in like the corporate offices, who work in the film division, who work at AWS.

But then, you know, I feel like a lot of the ones that you end up talking to are the ones who are, you know, in the warehouses, in the Whole Foods, doing the deliveries, these ones who are paid less and who likely their working conditions are much more difficult than the ones, you know, who are at the corporate level, I guess. So I wonder, what is it like for these workers to work under Jeff Bezos, to work under Amazon? What kind of structure have they put in place? And what does it mean to be a worker in these warehouses and in these different roles at Amazon? So the first thing you said, that talking mostly to more vulnerable workers is intentional.

I have very poor sourcing in the corporate world of Amazon. It's intentional that we cover like blue collar Amazon workers. What is it like? The main things that come up when I talk to workers are not necessarily the pay, but sort of the working conditions themselves. So the toll it takes on your body to be moving in a repetitive motion that's unnatural, like hundreds of times an hour over the course of six or eight or 10 hours, the level of surveillance and how much you're being tracked by a camera or some sort of monitor that you're wearing. That comes up a lot. And then I think a huge thing is like not being respected on the job, like having an HR or a manager or supervisor that actually like doesn't even pretend to give a shit

about any issue you're having. And like in the case that you need accommodations for pregnancy, or that you maybe are like feeling extremely ill when you're at work, or might have some sort of emergency where you need to go pick up your kid from school, like there is just no sympathy. And it's brutal to the point where people get fired left and right. Amazon has, as you would expect, like a very euphemistic PR campaign about what it's like to work in a warehouse. I see ads everywhere on TV and in airports. They're just all over the internet about how things are really cheery and great and people love their jobs. I don't think that translates over to the actual workplace. I don't think people are expected to be happy in the workplace or expected to be like loving their jobs. Like there's an understanding or at

least from workers I've spoken to that, that this job sucks. And I mean, in terms of pay, well, when we're talking about like urban areas, like Los Angeles or New York City that are expensive, Amazon warehouse job is often a second job or people are moonlighting as Amazon warehouse workers in order to make ends meet, but they might be teachers or, I don't know, nurses or EMTs during the day or whatever. In rural areas, often Amazon warehouse jobs are the best paying in that region. So you might have fast food and Dollar Tree, which are paid minimum wage. And then you have Amazon warehouse jobs that are paid $15 an hour, and that often come with healthcare benefits. And so the pay and the benefits aren't the

biggest concern because it's better than the alternative. Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm assuming like a lot of what you're talking about there is the warehouse jobs, like in the fulfillment centers that are kind of the jobs that I think many people associate with Amazon, right? But I feel like there is another aspect to that. And that's kind of the delivery side of things, how Amazon is kind of building out this growing delivery network. And these delivery drivers are often subcontractors or independent contractors through the Flex program. Can you talk a bit about what it is like for those drivers on the delivery side of things? Yeah. So you have like all different sorts of warehouses, like fulfillment centers, which are the huge cavernous hundreds of thousands of square feet warehouses, millions of square feet. Then you have like sortation centers. And then the last, the smallest

and sort of last place that your packages go before they come to your house is the delivery stations. Those are closer to like where you live. And they're a lot smaller. And warehouse workers work at those as well. But you also have delivery drivers who work there and none of them are employed by Amazon, which is a very, you know, as most people know, like a convenient structure. So Amazon doesn't have to take responsibility for people getting into car accidents or whatever, or any sort of legal troubles that come up because they definitely do come up when you're working so quickly. But there are two types of drivers. So one of them is called DSP, delivery service partner.

And those are people that you see that I see all the time. I'm sure I don't know if you see them in Newfoundland, probably not. Okay, I see them like 50 times a day. They're in Amazon branded cars, they're wearing Amazon branded clothes often, sometimes they're in unmarked cars, but often everything that they're wearing makes it appear that they're Amazon employees, but they're actually not. They're actually employed by these small companies called DSPs. And the DSPs, there are hundreds of them in the United States, they operate out of these small delivery stations. And they're in fierce competition with each other. And Amazon gives them routes and gives them equipment and gives them basically everything they need.

And then the leftover jobs, the leftover routes that don't get filled every day are worked by Amazon Flex drivers. Sorry, I was getting to be too much. But that's the second type of Amazon driver, the Flex drivers. Sorry, this is getting to be too much. But that's the second type of Amazon driver, the Flex driver. And the Flex driver is basically a gig worker. They're employed by themselves. They're not employed by anyone. They're independent contractors. They're like an Uber, Lyft driver, Instacart courier. And they deliver the leftover packages that the delivery drivers who are employed by the small

companies don't finish. So in both situations, you've got extremely high quotas that seem to keep getting higher and higher in terms of how many packages you're supposed to be delivering an hour. And you have these routes that are set up for you that are given to you by Amazon. And the routes are determined by an algorithm that someone has designed. You hear from drivers a lot on both sides that the expectations are to deliver way more packages than is possible than you have in the like a lot of times. So often you don't finish or often your shift is so long that you're kind of falling asleep by the end or often the algorithm has calculated that you could do the work a lot of time. So often you don't finish, or often your shift is so long that you're kind of falling

asleep by the end. Or often the algorithm has calculated that you could do the work a lot faster than you actually could. So you're then you're running behind, and then you have drivers crossing the street, instead of being able to park on both sides of the street, they're just running back and forth. And then you're having drivers get killed because they're working so quickly and don't have enough time to do what they're trying to do. So those jobs in some ways are, I hate to say they're worse than the warehouse jobs, but they are some of the least protected and most brutal of this whole world of different types of Amazon jobs. Yeah, those are not good. The delivery drivers are also guaranteed $15 an hour. But the pressure that I've heard workers describe coming down from the small delivery company,

which is actually just coming down from Amazon, threatening the small delivery company is brutal and there's extremely high turnover. So that's the other side of the delivery side of things. I think you described it really well. And one of the good illustrations, I think, of the subcontractors is Ken Loach's Sorry We Missed You. I don't know if you saw that film. Oh, I did.

Yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was a really good illustration of how much pressure these drivers are under. So if people want to get a decent movie that kind of shows this. The guy's like peeing in a cup in his car and then I can't even, does he crash the car? I don't even know. I won't give it away. Yeah. It just kind of shows how like the pressure just gets so much worse and there's no like making up for it or improving his lot in life, right? Because he's kind of stuck in this position. Right. I think he keeps going into greater and greater debt because whatever conditions of work keep

causing him to screw up various parts of his life. Yeah. Really depressing movie, but good. I do recommend it. Yeah. So you've laid out what it's like in the warehouses and in the delivery network. And I feel like one of the key things in the delivery network. And I feel like one of the key things about the delivery network is how Amazon is kind of building this alternative

delivery system. So it doesn't have to avail of USPS, UPS, or FedEx as much. And I think one of the key things there is that, you know, USPS and UPS are unionized services, right? That the workers at these companies have unions, have the benefits and kind of the pay and the power that comes with that. But Amazon is building this system that even goes further than FedEx in kind of breaking down unions and relying on workforces that do not have the power to be able to push back and to demand better. And it reduces the cost of doing the shipping. So I guess that's better for Amazon's bottom line and it makes it easier to offer prime and free shipping and stuff like that. But ultimately, that comes at the expense of workers being able to have a decent

job and I guess the power that comes with having a union and to be able to kind of push back against Amazon. Yeah, the very structure of these DSPs, the small businesses that do all the delivery work that was created. I mean, people widely think this is the reason the reason why it was created to have so many people working for hundreds of small companies instead of having all these drivers working for Amazon was a strategy to keep unions out because they're much harder to organize a hundred small companies than one big one, a hundred small companies that are struggling to stay afloat. A lot of the issues that workers have with Amazon kind of came to a head during the pandemic. It seemed like Amazon did not respond properly to the pandemic, at least in the early stages. And workers, I guess, maybe began to organize more than they

had before. Maybe you can speak to that a bit more. But what do you make of how Amazon responded to the pandemic initially, and then how workers responded then to Amazon's response to ensure that they were able to work safely at these warehouses and I guess in the delivery side of things as well. During the earliest days of the pandemic, Amazon Prime, which promises two-day delivery, faltered because workers weren't able to keep up with the demand. And at that time, this is when you're seeing the first COVID-19 outbreaks. I think I believe the first reported case was in Queens in New York City, and then sort of spreading throughout the New York City area and the West Coast, and eventually all over. But you know, Amazon's response at first was to give workers $2 of hazard pay an hour who decided to show up and then also have a policy of unlimited unpaid time off. So you could basically call out every single day if you

wanted to and not get paid, but be sure that you wouldn't get fired. That was short lived. And this was also true for Whole Foods workers. Whole Foods is a subsidiary of Amazon, both the pay and the unlimited paid time off. And then yeah, that was short lived ended in May, which if you think about it was just the start of the pandemic, really, and just the start of, you know, things have gotten way worse since then. I think it is very fair to say that the response has been organizing at Amazon facilities in an unprecedented way that we haven't seen before. I remember when I first started working at Vice and first started covering tech and labor, it was like a huge deal if there was a walkout at an Amazon facility. I remember I would tweet,

like, oh, these workers in Minnesota walked out last night. And people on the internet would, I mean, leftists on the internet, and I don't know who else would go crazy. Like, this is like a huge deal, any sort of walkout or strike. By the summer, if there was a walkout at a warehouse, no one really cared that much. Because I mean, it was great and people cared, but it didn't attract that much attention because it was happening in tons of different cities. There was like a May Day strike where Amazon and Whole Foods workers around the country participated at warehouses all over the place.

You had back in March, a walkout of the Amazon Fulfillment Center in Staten Island, which was led by this guy, Chris Smalls, Christian Smalls, who was fired. And then another vice reporter broke the story that Amazon had a plan, or like in a meeting discussed a plan to smear this guy and call him inarticulate. So after that, there's a series of walkouts in Minnesota and Sacramento and Chicago, probably forgetting places. I think there was a walkout in Queens, definitely. And I believe in the Inland Empire in California, where all the warehouses are there. Yeah, so there was this moment when it felt like, you know, this sort of organizing had really ramped up. I think maybe in some ways, it's slowed down a bit, because that's just usually how it works, like, strike waves happen or whatever. But I think the

biggest news, which we want to discuss at some point is that Amazon is now facing a union election at one of its facilities, which pretty shocking is in Bessemer, Alabama in the south and a, you know, historically very anti-union part of the country. As I understand this particular part of Alabama has a history and a legacy of trade unionism. And particularly, that's where like, it's outside of Birmingham, and there's a lot of manufacturing jobs and a lot of organizing the African American community there. And that's sort of the and there's a lot of manufacturing jobs and a lot of organizing in the African-American community there. And that's sort of the base of workers who are now organizing to form a union with the retail, wholesale and department store workers union, which really has a base in New York City. Although they do have some presence down in the South. And that, I believe Amazon hasn't faced a union drive

at any, like a full-blown union election, sorry, at any of its facilities in five years. There was maybe a small one with, I don't know if you know this, I should know this. I think there was one in 2014 in Delaware. I think that was the most recent. Yeah, it wasn't warehouse workers. I can't

exactly remember what type of worker it was, but they lost. And then there was another union drive back in either the early 2000s or late 1990s at a call center in Washington state. And that also didn't come through. There's been one union election at a Whole Foods in the United States ever. And that was in Wisconsin and Madison or Milwaukee. I can't remember. Some years ago, that also lost. Oh, wait. No, I believe it won, but then somehow got decertified.

But yeah, there are no unionized Amazon warehouse workers in the United States. So this is a huge deal. Amazon is extremely anti-union. They've made it clear on many different occasions. So I think we're at a moment that is a big deal. And part of the momentum for it came from the organizing that happened during the pandemic and the pandemic itself as sort of a rallying point for workers sort of seeing the ways that they're being exploited all along, but seeing them sort of more clear because of the general situation.

Yeah, I think that's fascinating. And it's so helpful to see what's happening in Alabama. I think, you know, in the way that you say, you know, it used to be a big deal to hear about an Amazon walkout, it seems like, you know, now we've progressed to the union drive being the big deal. And hopefully that, you know, becomes something that's normal. Yeah, that becomes normal in a few years, right? There's two aspects of that, that I want to ask you about a number of the stories that you wrote about Amazon during the pandemic focused on the ways that it was increasing surveillance of workers, whether that, as you mentioned before, is through getting into Facebook groups, surveilling listservs, hiring the Pinkertons

and these groups to kind of surveil social movements, environmental groups, but also workers. And so they are kind of increasing their surveillance. But then on the other side of things, as you described, organizing is increasing at these warehouses across the United States and I would imagine in other parts of the world where they are operating as well. So do you think that Amazon is headed toward a place where there's going to be a push for more unions at more of the warehouses that it operates? And do you think this surveillance will in any way get in the way of workers' ability

to try to form these unions? Yeah. So I did this story in October, I believe. No, it was in November. That relied on a ton of documents I had obtained from a team within Amazon's global security operations that show that Amazon is spying on its warehouse workers in Europe in pretty intense detail. And I should say, Amazon warehouse workers in Europe are unionized. So in Germany and Italy and France and the UK, they're unionized. So they already sort of are seeing what it's like to be unionized

under Amazon. And it's like, they have this team dedicated to tracking basically like every single labor organizing action, even down to two people that happens at a warehouse and sending out notifications to a huge division of Amazon whenever this happens. So like two people were leafletting outside of the gates of whatever between the hours of whenever and whenever. And this is the person who reported it. And this is what the literature was. And this is who these workers were. And this is the time it ended. And this is how we de-escalated and everyone gets the information. So I wouldn't say that has deterred organizing in Europe, but like unions are a lot stronger in Europe. And so they have a lot

more protections and are able to form a lot easier than they are. They are in the United States, I think, in terms of the United States, like if the workers in Alabama one, which I think is already like going to be extremely difficult uphill battle, I think workers in the United States are up against a lot worse in terms of the surveillance because this is Amazon's home court. And this is where they're most familiar. And this is where they're the most powerful. And this is where they already, I'm sure, have the most sophisticated surveillance operations, both in terms of their warehouse workforce, but also in terms of their corporate workforce, and sort of where they test out new methods. Today, I think the information just reported that they have a new

way of like monitoring their warehouse drivers body movement or something like that. But yeah, this is where it's all like happening. So I think it's fair to expect that this will come up. If workers seek to organize in more places, I think one thing that is very clear is that this will come up if workers seek to organize in more places. I think one thing that is very clear is that Amazon will do anything in its power and pay any amount of money to keep unions out of its warehouses. It is willing to literally spend whatever it takes because it's not just about unions, it's about control, which we know is very important. And that's not changing even without Jeff Bezos. So I think you can expect that surveillance will increase as organizing increases. And surveillance makes people scared. Like people are already scared to join unions or to organize at a place like Amazon. If this is your livelihood, this is, you know, something

you're not going to easily risk. I do think that surveillance will deter people. And that's unfortunate, but I don't know if it will deter things altogether, because there's been organizing going on, and lots of places where there is already surveillance, and like workers have many sort of tools that are available to them that they've already taken advantage of their groups on signal, there are groups on other encrypted chats, there are new spaces being formed that are digital, that are protected, that people are thinking about right now, specifically for Amazon warehouse workers. So there's also that, and that's hopeful. Absolutely. And I think that's an important point to bring up, right, is that a lot of these workers are dependent on these

jobs for their livelihoods. And some of them will rightfully be scared about losing those jobs, even if that means accepting the terrible conditions that they have to put up with, right? And so I'm wondering where you think things are going to go from here with Amazon, because obviously we have Jeff Bezos stepping into a new role and Andy Jassy taking over as CEO. We've talked about how working conditions have been a long running issue at Amazon. And not only is it expanding its warehouse network, but it's also expanding its delivery network, which also has these drivers who are subcontractors or independent contractors. You've talked about how organizing is increasing through the pandemic as the issues at Amazon, I guess, come to a head in a certain way. And Amazon is obviously very intent on ensuring that those workers don't get

anywhere. So obviously you have been covering this for a year and a half, I think that you said, you've made relationships with some of these workers. Where do you think that things are going to go next or could go in the future with Amazon? and how militant unions were at that time and how they were able to sort of bargain with these large corporations and actually for a short time, win some real benefits and job security and stuff like that. Like it's exciting that there are, you know, walkouts happening everywhere,

but organized labor is extremely weak. And I don't think one Amazon warehouse organizing a union and successfully winning that, which is already highly unlikely is going to make it loads easier to win unions. It's not like all of a sudden, we're going to see unions everywhere at Amazon warehouses. I'm sorry to be pessimistic. But I see Amazon growing, I see labor, hopefully pushing back, but it's unclear. And, you know, maybe gaining some some ground, but still dealing with this Goliath, and having to deal with a company that is willing to spend, like I said, like, however much money it takes to keep them down. So I'm not optimistic. Are you? I want to be, but at the same time, I recognize all the constraints that you mentioned there. And so, yeah, I think it will be an uphill battle if there is progress that's made. But

hopefully that organizing can continue so that the workers can have some way of pushing back or try to improve their conditions in some way. For sure. Yeah, I don't mean to be a downer. I just think I get overly excited as a new labor reporter about these walkouts and these things being historic and like unprecedented and then taking a step back and looking at, you know, how much we're contending with and how weak organized labor is. And I'm like, okay, like, this is great. And I'm glad this is happening. And it's important. And it's historic. But at the same time, being more realistic, I don't know how much change we're going to see in the short term. When we think about these things, it's thinking about what's happening at the warehouses, thinking about what's happening more broadly with tech

workers organizing and seeing if they're going to make any progress at other companies, and then also seeing what's going to happen with the government and whether they are going to be able to, or whether they're even going to try to kind of reduce the power of these major tech monopolies. So I think there are a lot of important issues playing out right now. And I know I'll be paying attention to your reporting as you keep looking into these important issues and following what's happening with labor at tech companies. And, you know, I would just recommend any of the listeners if they want to keep up with labor issues to follow your reporting at Motherboard, because I think it's some of the best that's going on right now.

So, Lauren, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat, to join me on the podcast. Thanks so much. Yeah, thank you so much. I'm honored to be on. Lauren Kaori Gurley is a labor reporter at Motherboard, which is part of Vice, and you can find links to some of her recent stories in the show notes. You can follow Lauren on Twitter at Lauren K. Gurley. You can also follow me at Paris Marks, and you can follow the show at Tech Won't Save Us. Tech Won't Save Us is part of the Harbinger Media Network, and you can find out more about that at harbingermedianetwork.com. If you want to support the work that I put into making the podcast every week,

you can go to patreon.com slash tech won't save us and become a supporter. Thanks for listening. Thank you.