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Amazon fined millions for excessive control of employees
Amazon was fined 32 million euros for "excessive" control of its workers in France. France's data protection watchdog CNIL said Amazon France Logistique, which operates the warehouse, recorded data captured by workers' hand-held scanners.
Amazon allegedly tracked employees so closely that workers had to justify every break. Amazon firmly stated that it does not agree with the findings of the CNIL and called them erroneous.
The CNIL investigated Amazon's warehouse following employee complaints and media reporting on the situation. He stated more areas in which it found that Amazon had violated the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Among other things, the system with three warnings for monitoring the activities of employees, which the CNIL decided to be illegal, is said to be questionable.
One warning was triggered if an item was scanned too quickly or less than 1.25 seconds after the previous item was scanned, increasing the risk of an error. Another alert signaled breaks lasting 10 minutes or more, and a third followed breaks between one and 10 minutes.
The CNIL also questioned why Amazon had to keep the workers' data for 31 days.
In response to the findings, an Amazon spokesperson said: “Of course, we do not agree with the findings of the CNIL, which are factually incorrect, and we reserve the right to file an appeal.. Warehouse management systems are the industry standard and are necessary to ensure the safety, quality and efficiency of work performance and to monitor the storage of stock and timely processing of packages in accordance with customer expectations.”
A similar system of Amazon warehouses was exposed in the United Kingdom even earlier.
Amazon's head of European policy, Brian Palmer, told a parliamentary committee in November 2022 that a worker can be fired if he has three productivity violations in the system. The online giant later said they were not "entirely correct".
A subsequent report published by the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee raised concerns about the use of surveillance technology to set performance targets and monitor performance.
The report said there was evidence that Amazon's supervisory practices "lead to mistrust, micromanagement and, in some cases, disciplinary action against workers."
Amazon also used the data collected by the scanner to plan work in warehouses, weekly evaluations of employees and their training. The supervisory authority decided that Amazon did not need access to the data collected by the scanners for this.
The online shopping giant was fined for not adequately informing workers and outside visitors about the surveillance, and the supervisory authority also found that the video surveillance was insufficiently secured.
The GMB union, which represents Amazon's warehouse workers in the United Kingdom, responded to the ruling by saying that employees at the company face "severe pressures of scrutiny and control".
