#workplace-surveillance

Internal documents made public in a court fight between Amazon and a Canadian union suggest Amazon uses Atlas, an in-house AI forecasting tool, to predict how likely warehouse staff in the US, Canada and the UK are to try to unionize, stage a sit-in or take other "disruptive labour events," openDemocracy reports. The documents, which appear to be training material for managers, say Atlas draws on "hundreds of data points," including Reddit posts and staff survey answers, to give each warehouse a score from 100 to 900, sorted into five tiers from "no immediate perceived risk" to "future activity is imminent."

An Amazon spokesperson rejected the description of Atlas as individual monitoring or surveillance, saying it works at site or building level only, does not track individual employees' opinions, affiliations or union membership, and is used to see where staff need more support.