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California Bill Takes Aim at Amazon's Productivity-tracking Algorithms (theverge.com) 41

Posted by msmash from the up-next dept.
California is poised to pass a new bill pushing back against the productivity measurement algorithms allegedly used in Amazon fulfillment centers. From a report: The bill passed California's lower legislative chamber in May, and the upper chamber is expected to vote on it next week. If passed, the bill would place new transparency requirements on automated quota systems, and block any such systems that could endanger the health and safety of workers. Introducing the bill in July, Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) cited a Verge report that found "hundreds" of Amazon warehouse employees had been fired for failing to meet productivity quotas at a single facility in Baltimore over the span of just over than a year. Associated documents showed a deeply automated system to track individual employees' productivity rates.
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California Bill Takes Aim at Amazon's Productivity-tracking Algorithms More

California Bill Takes Aim at Amazon's Productivity-tracking Algorithms

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  • Desperation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Monday September 06, 2021 @07:37PM (#61770169)
    You'd have to be really desperate to work a place like this.

  • does the California legislature have over a facility in Baltimore?

    • likely because that was the one they had statistics on.

  • I'm confused (Score:2, Interesting)

    by lsllll ( 830002 )
    Why do you need a law specifically about this program when endangering the health and safety of workers should be punishable by law, regardless of what program inside the company is causing it? Do we really need another law? How about we just enforce the existing laws? Or are the laws so badly written that they don't broadly apply and protect workers?
    • has gutted those protections. And you can't just pass a law that says "the courts don't get to ignore labor law". So you pass something that's designed to box the courts in.

      • California judges are elected directly by California voters.
        It is true that that those voters have given control of legislature to the same party for over 20 years (the Democrats). It's true the Dems having trifecta control of the entire state government for most of that time.

        I'm not sure I'd call the decisions of the CA voters "court packing". Unwise, perhaps. Maybe even "refusing to learn from their mistakes", but I don't think "court packing" quite fits.

    • It's a good question. I'd urge you to contact Lorena Gonzalez and ask it.

    • There is precedent for this nonsense. There are anti-texting laws, but there has nearly always been laws against distracted driving. It's the world we live in, where laws cascade redundantly.

      • Our legislatures have a problem. They think if they're not creating new laws, they're not doing their jobs. All they manage to do is screw things up more than fix things. We'd be better off if they realized that every trending Twitter topic didn't need some new-fangled law and instead used their platform to inform the public of the existing laws. In many cases, it's the governors, mayors, state attorney generals and district attorneys choosing not to enforce/prosecute existing laws causing the public op

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        There is precedent for this nonsense. There are anti-texting laws, but there has nearly always been laws against distracted driving. It's the world we live in, where laws cascade redundantly.

        It can be a law of a different class. Some laws cannot be applied as a reason to pull you over.

        For example, many distracted driving laws can only be charged after an accident happens or you're pulled over for another reason - a cop cannot proactively pull you over for texting or driving distracted unless they pull you o

    • Hiring humans is a dangerous proposition. Humans can't be trusted not to sue or act like fools. What protection do you have? Nowadays even accusations and suspicion can be bad career-wise. You always have to worry that what you, or someone in your organizational purview, says to someone can be interpreted or shown to be discriminatory, insensitive, or demeaning. And you can't get away with shutting up. I know a guy who had Indians (the ones from Southeast Asia, not native Americans) working for him and he w

    • Because in California, the labor unions write the laws and have their bought and paid for Democratic politicians pass them. This law is meant to make Amazon look bad and encourage Amazon employees to unionize so that the union leaders can siphon incomes off of more workers. This is not about doing the right thing. It's all about creating optics to encourage a specific outcome.

      If there were an actual problem beyond workers not being happy about having their productivity measured, there would be actual cou

  • worker needs to vote in an union NOW and not wait (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Joe_Dragon ( 2206452 ) on Monday September 06, 2021 @07:42PM (#61770177)

    worker needs to vote in an union NOW and not wait for the state pass an bill

  • From the article:

    Specifically, employees can request “a written description of each quota to which the employee is subject, including the quantified number of tasks to be performed, or materials to be produced or handled, within the defined time period, and any potential adverse employment action that could result from failure to meet the quota.”

    I'd be very surprised if Amazon's algorithm was so simple as "pack N items per hour". It probably assigns a score to each item based on a model of where that item is and where the worker is, how big/heavy, etc. More or less like driving directions in a maps app. If someone's ordering pencils, it's a lower score than a box of barbells. If the next item is right next to this one, it's a lower score than if it's across the warehouse.

    The nice thing (from Amazon's point of view) is that they

    • Amazonâ(TM)s algorithms rank you on a rolling average based on other workers in your job. It then sets productivity goals based on that average and scores you accordingly. It punishes workers for such deficiencies as not unpacking enough boxes per hour when most of the hour there were no trucks providing boxes to unpack.

    • Wonder if it'd be possible to hack the quotas by convincing everyone in the plant to slow down by about the same amount.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by stikves ( 127823 )

      In theory it makes economic sense to pit worker against worker in a never ending competition, and keep the ones who survive. However Arnold had done the ultimate conclusion of this in "Running Man". Do we need to have reality shows of convicted criminals in a death arena?

      Yes, do get rid of real slackers. Yes, use automation to encourage people to be more productive. And yes, try to optimize things. But don't forget these are human beings, which can have a bad day, or need some support. It is not a machine.

  • Non Sequitur (Score:3)

    by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Monday September 06, 2021 @10:00PM (#61770399)
    Productivity != health and safety violation.

  • Humans do not want to work. And I say this as a human myself. That's right, fuck you, I don't want to work. Why do you think I am on slashdot? No, work doesn't make me a better person or any bullshit. Work sucks. Especially manual work. If anything, that fucks up the brain. Neglecting family, that fucks up the brain too. Not having a life or hobby .. that fucks up the brain. Work sucks. Anyway, working for a boss especially sucks. I mean, how do you know your boss isn't discriminating against you? It happen

    • Sorry you have never had a fulfilling job. Oldfart EE here. By Sunday afternoon, I'm ready to go back to work. I take pride in all the projects I've completed, all the youngfarts I've trained and information I've learned.

  • Amazon is stuck with humans for the long term because the company doesn't have the power and guts to tell their suppliers to ditch retail packaging and send them everything in standardized cardboard boxes that machines can easily handle. Robots are nowhere near sophisticated enough to know how to grip and sort through various one-off package shapes or loose items.

  • There is another article on the front page of slashdot describing how polluters game the system when they know when they are being measured. We all know how hard search engine optimizers try and game google page rank. Amazon wants to know who their most productive workers are and they want to do it for the least cost. This is what any boss wants. Amazon warehouses pay well compared to other warehouse work. This isn't a job that requires great physical ability or a university degree. At the end of the
  • Maybe the company fired them because they're not getting as much work done as their colleagues, and paying based on productivity will cause them to be sued in a pay equity lawsuit.

  • If you live in California, the authorities have determined that you have too much money, and more of it will now be taken from you.

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