If you read this article, you'll learn more about why using Amazon when
there's another alternative, is immoral. I've used it when necessary, but
reluctantly. Most blind people are grateful for it because using it makes
shopping easier. I understand that. But Amazon is responsible for some very
terrible things, particularly, its labor practices. So all the blind people
who claim to be left leaning and who have no way to put their beliefs into
action aside from writing about them online, could take responsibility for
what they believe by, for example, buying their NLS cartridges directly from
A P H or whichever blindness organization cells them, rather than from
Amazon, when possible.
Miriam
Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company's Surveillance of Labor and
Environmental Groups
By Lauren Kaori Gurley, VICE
27 November 20
Dozens of leaked documents from Amazons Global Security Operations Center
reveal the companys reliance on Pinkerton operatives to spy on warehouse
workers and the extensive monitoring of labor unions, environmental
activists, and other social movements.
trove of more than two dozen internal Amazon reports reveal in stark detail
the company's obsessive monitoring of organized labor and social and
environmental movements in Europe, particularly during Amazon's peak
season between Black Friday and Christmas. The reports, obtained by
Motherboard, were written in 2019 by Amazon intelligence analysts who work
for the Global Security Operations Center, the company's security division
tasked with protecting Amazon employees, vendors, and assets at Amazon
facilities around the world.
The documents show Amazon analysts closely monitor the labor and
union-organizing activity of their workers throughout Europe, as well as
environmentalist and social justice groups on Facebook and Instagram. They
also indicate, and an Amazon spokesperson confirmed, that Amazon has hired
Pinkerton operativesfrom the notorious spy agency known for its
union-busting activitiesto gather intelligence on warehouse workers.
Internal emails sent to Amazon's Global Security Operations Center obtained
by Motherboard reveal that all the division's team members around the world
receive updates on labor organizing activities at warehouses that include
the exact date, time, location, the source who reported the action, the
number of participants at an event (and in some cases a turnout rate of
those expected to participate in a labor action), and a description of what
happened, such as a "strike" or "the distribution of leaflets." Other
documents reveal that Amazon intelligence analysts keep close tabs on how
many warehouse workers attend union meetings; specific worker
dissatisfactions with warehouse conditions, such as excessive workloads; and
cases of warehouse-worker theft, from a bottle of tequila to $15,000 worth
of smart watches.
The documents offer an unprecedented look inside the internal security and
surveillance apparatus of a company that has vigorously attempted to tamp
down employee dissent and has previously been caught smearing employees who
attempted to organize their colleagues. Amazon's approach of dealing with
its own workforce, labor unions, and social and environmental movements as a
threat has grave implications for its workers' privacy and ability to join
labor unions and collectively bargainand not only in Europe. It should also
be concerning to both customers and workers in the United States and Canada,
and around the world as the company expands into Turkey, Australia, Mexico,
Brazil, and India.
Amazon intelligence analysts appear to gather information on labor
organizing and social movements to prevent any disruptions to order
fulfillment operations. The new intelligence reports obtained by Motherboard
reveal in detail how Amazon uses social media to track environmental
activism and social movements in Europeincluding Greenpeace and Fridays For
Future, environmental activist Greta Thunberg's global climate strike
movementand perceives such groups as a threat to its operations. In 2019,
Amazon monitored the Yellow Vests movement, also known as the gilet jaunes,
a grassroots uprising for economic justice that spread across Franceand
solidarity movements in Vienna and protests against state repression in
Iran.
The stated purpose of one of these documents is to "highlight potential
risks/hazards that may impact Amazon operations, in order to meet customer
expectation."
"Like any other responsible business, we maintain a level of security within
our operations to help keep our employees, buildings, and inventory safe,"
Lisa Levandowski, a spokesperson for Amazon told Motherboard. "That includes
having an internal investigations team who work with law enforcement
agencies as appropriate, and everything we do is in line with local laws and
conducted with the full knowledge and support of local authorities. Any
attempt to sensationalize these activities or suggest were doing something
unusual or wrong is irresponsible and incorrect."
Levandowski denied that Amazon hired on-the-ground operatives, and said that
any claim that Amazon performs the described activities across its
operations worldwide was "N/A."
In a report from November 2019, however, an analyst wrote that Amazon hired
Pinkerton spies who were "inserted" into a warehouse in Wroclaw, Poland, to
investigate an allegation that management coached job candidates on how to
complete job interviews and possibly even conducted the process for them.
The Pinkerton spies were posted in a Wroclaw warehouse known as WRO1,
operated by the Amazon contractor ADECCO, to investigate the allegation,
according to the Amazon report. "PINKERTON operatives were inserted into
WRO1 ADECCO between 2019-11-19 and 2019-11-21. No identifiable evidence of
coaching on behalf of the agency recruiters was observed," the document
states. "Investigative actions to prove/disprove this hypothesis are
ongoing."
The report refers to the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries in the United States supplied detectives to
infiltrate unions and hired violent goon squads to intimidate workers from
engaging in union activity in steel mills. Today, Pinkerton is a subsidiary
of the Swedish security company Securitas AB, and has supplied operatives to
monitor strikes in West Virginia as recently as 2018.
Levandowski, the Amazon spokesperson, confirmed that Amazon hired the
Pinkerton Detective Agency. "We have business partnerships with specialist
companies for many different reasonsin the case of Pinkerton, to secure
high-value shipments in transit," she said. "We do not use our partners to
gather intelligence on warehouse workers. All activities we undertake are
fully in line with local laws and conducted with the full knowledge and
support of local authorities."
Some of the internal reports obtained by Motherboard also suggest that
Amazon's risk analysts use the same tactics to monitor its hundreds of
thousands of warehouse and delivery drivers throughout the Americas, the
Middle East, Australia, and East Asia.
"Its not enough for Amazon to abuse its dominant market power and face
antitrust charges by the EU; now they are exporting 19th century American
union-busting tactics to Europe," Christy Hoffman, general secretary of UNI
Global Union, a global federation of trade unions that represents more than
20 million workers, told Motherboard. "This is a company that is ignoring
the law, spying on workers, and using every page of the U.S. union-busting
playbook to silence workers' voices."
"For years people have been comparing Big Tech bosses to 19th century robber
barons," she continued. "And now by using the Pinkertons to do his dirty
work, [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos is making that connection even clearer."
In October, Leïla Chaibi, a member of European Parliament from France, wrote
a letter to Bezos co-signed by 37 members of European Parliament, condemning
recent reports about Amazon's interference with worker organizing in Europe.
"With Jeff Bezos, we're confronted with someone who doesn't simply run a
business and sell products but with someone who is threatening our
democracy," Chaibi told Motherboard in response to the new reports about
Amazon's surveillance of workers and social movements throughout Europe.
"This is a big danger to Europe."
"These reports suggest that corporations like Amazon stand in the way of
democracies and economies that work for everyone, and that we have every
reason to be concerned," said Dania Rajendra, the director of Athena, a
coalition of dozens of grassroots organizations in the United States aligned
against Amazon. "We have every right to expect that our elected officials
will take this information and protect communities who are harmed by
Amazon."
Until recently, little had been made public about Amazon's anti-worker
initiatives and strategiesdespite years of reports on Amazon's opposition
to union activity and alleged retaliation against workers who organize in
the United States. In September, after public outcry, Amazon removed two job
postings for intelligence analysts for its Global Security Operations Center
who could track "labor organizing threats" to the company. "Fluency (written
and spoken) of a second language such as Hindi, Tagalog, Spanish, Arabic,
French, Mandarin, Korean, Japanese or Brazilian Portuguese highly desired,"
the posting read, suggesting the company is tracking labor organizing
activity around the world.
UNI Europa, a branch of UNI Global Union, which represents 2 million workers
in the European Union, responded to news of the job posts by demanding that
the European Commission investigate Amazons effort to spy on workers in
Europe, calling it "potentially illegal."
A source with knowledge of the company's intelligence activities told
Motherboard that in order to track protests and other labor organizing
activity, Amazon intelligence agents create social media accounts without
photos and track the online activity of workers leading organizing efforts.
Motherboard granted the source anonymity because they feared retaliation
from Amazon.
"When that team stalked people, they'd use fake accounts on social media,"
they said. "They'd use a fake name and a profile with no photo. The worst
part is that they read tons of conversations and messages, and knew
everything about the private lives of these people. They knew if they had a
bad day with their family."
Levandowski, the spokesperson for Amazon, said it is against company policy
to create social media accounts with fake names and photo-less profiles.
A team within Amazon's Global Security Operation Center, which includes
former military intelligence analysts, according to LinkedIn, closely tracks
organized labor and union activity in France, the United Kingdom, Italy,
Spain, Germany, Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, and Slovakianoting
where organized labor groups are strongest and could influence Amazon
workers.
In one set of documents, known as "security risk assessments," analysts
gather data on and evaluate potential risks to Amazon operations at the
sites of future and currently operating Amazon warehouses, sorting centers,
and delivery stations. These documents break down their analyses into at
least four categories: crime, cargo crime, extremism and terrorism, and
operational environment. For example, as part of its tracking of crime,
analysts monitor the drug trade, noting how it could impact its warehouses
but also specifically whether its workers are likely to be drug users.
Requests for risk assessments of Amazon warehouse sites are sent to the team
by email, according to an email viewed by Motherboard.
The "operational environment" category of Amazon's risk assessments covers
labor activities, such as the presence of unions as well as protests and
demonstrations and civil disobedience and unrest in areas where Amazon has
warehouses or plans to build them, according to the documents. Each category
is assigned one of five color-coded "risk ratings" "negligible," "low,"
"moderate," "high," or "critical." The chart defines "critical" risk as "a
strong possibility that the threat source will engage in an action that has
potential to impact Amazon associates, business continuity, or assets."
In one report from October 2019, an Amazon warehouse in the exurbs of Paris,
known as DIF4, was deemed a "moderate" risk in the operational environment
category. Although no unions had presence in Amazon logistics warehouses in
France, so-called "anarcho-syndicalist groups," including the Confédération
Générale du Travail Unitaire (CGTU), one of France's most powerful trade
unions, "had attempted to garner the support Paris-based [Amazon Logistics]
associates in the past." The report noted that "such campaigns remain rare,
limited in scope, and ultimately unsuccessful."
Two months later, in December 2019, warehouse workers at DIF4, in
conjunction with CGTU, shut off power to the warehouse for eight hours in
protest of the hiring of temporary workers, forcing a line of unfilled
Amazon trucks to sit on the side of the highway for hours, according to a
report in Le Parisien.
In two reports, the future site of Amazon warehouses on the outskirts of
Milan and on the island of Sardinia in Italy were deemed a "moderate" risk
in the operational environment category partly because trade unions,
including CFGIl and Uiltrasporti, held protests on the sites of other
Italian warehouses on behalf of their workers.
"Until now, these labor actions are not of a large enough scale to
significantly compromise Amazon operations or to create extensive delivery
delays," the reports said. "However, strike actions often take place
unannounced or at very short notice."
Two other reports from late 2019 on future warehouse sites in Lower Saxony
and Bavaria in Germany highlighted the presence of the labor union Verdi
(the union has led many multi-city strikes in Germany, including one on
Prime Day in October of this year) and the increasing presence of
environmentalist groups, including Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion, and
Greta Thunberg's youth-led environmentalist group Friday For Future, as a
threat, noting that Fridays For Future was "increasing their influence
especially on young people and students" and "growing and attracting more
and more people rapidly."
While Thunberg's movement hasn't specifically targeted Amazon, her call for
a Global Climate Strike in 2019 inspired hundreds of corporate Amazon
employees to stage their own walkout in protest of Amazon's climate
policies.
"We are flattered that Amazon considers us a threat great enough to justify
employing questionable practices like this," Fridays For Future told
Motherboard in a statement, responding to the news. "The fact that the youth
protesting around the world is something that a multinational corporation
feels the need to be surveillingthat means what we're doing is working."
Since Amazon posted job listings for two intelligence agents who could track
"labor organizing threats," journalists have obtained more documents that
reveal some of the sophisticated technology and strategies the company has
used to surveil its workforce and gain intelligence on worker organizing. In
September, Motherboard obtained evidence that Amazon had been using a social
media monitoring tool to spy on dozens of private Facebook groups for Amazon
Flex drivers in the United States and Europe. Last month, a report in Recode
revealed that Amazon has made significant investments in a new geospatial
tool that tracks threats to the company. Out of 40 or so data points Amazon
that tracks at least half are labor or employee-related, including Whole
Foods Market Activism/Unionization Efforts, union grant money flow
patterns, and Presence of Local Union Chapters and Alt Labor Groups."
In October, four U.S. senators, including Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth
Warren, responded to these reports in a letter to Jeff Bezos demanding
Amazon stop "actively interfering with workers rights by tracking and
monitoring employees who might exercise their rights to freedom of
association."
"Amazon needs to stop with the empty words, tell the truth about its
failures to keep workers safe, and stop undermining its workers legal right
to organize," Warren said of the new reports obtained by Motherboard. "Until
then, I wont stop fighting for these workers, their rights, and their
safety."
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who also recently wrote a
letter to Bezos requesting information about Amazon's interference with
workers' right to organize, sent statements to Motherboard condemning
Amazon's interference with workers' right to organize and the findings in
the new reports.
"Amazons spying on its own employees is especially odious," Wyden said.
"Its exhibit A for the need to pass new laws that would beef up federal
protections for labor organizing and hold bad actors accountable."
The magnitude of this surveillance, the lengths to which Amazon has gone to
keep it hidden from its own workers, and its admitted purpose are extremely
disturbing," said Sen. Brown.
"The fact that Amazon has decided to heavily invest in systems and efforts
to avoid unionization rather than improve the wages, hours, and working
conditions of its employees demonstrates its reckless disregard for the
welfare of its workforce, Brown continued.
A second type of report written by Amazon intelligence analysts, called the
Monthly Business Review, is broken down into sections by region detailing
"highlights" and "lowlights" from each month, and how Amazon handled various
threats to its operations spotted by the intelligence team that month.
Amazon described its use of Pinkerton spies in this type of report.
In the same report that mentioned the Pinkertons, an analyst explained that
after receiving intelligence that then-UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn
had plans to visit an Amazon warehouse, known as DXS1, in Sheffield,
Yorkshire in late November 2019, Amazon sent in security officers and
members of its Security & Loss Prevention team to monitor the site. In a
speech, Corbyn promised workers outside the Amazon warehouse that he would
"tackle wage and cheat culture" at multinational corporations in the United
Kingdom.
"No unauthorized access was granted to anyone during the visit and one
member of the public was prevented from entering the building by onsite
security," the report said of Corbyn's visit to the site.
In 2019, the same report states, Amazon warehouse workers redeemed $37,900
worth of customer gift cards in the United Kingdom, and that six of those
employees were identified and fired. In Poland, Amazon "off-boarded" two
employees suspected of writing threats "on inventory packaging and in bin
locations" that "implied that the author would make a deliberate and
malicious attempt to ignite" the warehouse.
For each region, data is also provided on Amazon's loss of inventory in
dollars, the total amount of inventory recovered in dollars, the number of
arrests and persons of interest fired and investigated, and the number of
stolen vehicles. In October 2019, for example, the report states that Amazon
lost $173,339.80 worth of inventory in the United Kingdom but regained
$131,592.05 of those losses. In the span of that month, four UK employees
were arrested, 35 employees "of interest" were "offboarded," and 31 delivery
vehicles were stolen.
Employees of Amazon's Global Security Operations also appear to receive
regular email updates about the labor organizing activity of workers.
One email obtained by Motherboard included a description of an hourlong
incident on March 10, 2020. "Two members of CGT Union [one of France's most
powerful unions]" who were also Amazon warehouse workers "distributed
leaflets in front of turnstiles" at an Amazon fulfillment center in Amiens,
France. The email includes both the exact time of the leaflet distribution
as well as the time it was reported to Amazon, and the name of a cluster
loss prevention manager who initially reported the incident. "The
distribution of leaflets ended and the activists left the site with no
impact to operations," the email said.
Another email obtained by Motherboard included a description of a warehouse
strike in Leipzig, Germany, on February 28, 2020. According to the email,
339 Amazon associates were assumed on strike, which included no workers in
lead positions and was "46.37% of expected" turnout.
Another set of reports, known as "peak-risk assessments," document threats
to Amazon between Black Friday and the end of the year. It has become
typical for workers across Europe to stage mass strikes against Amazon
between Black Friday and Christmas, when Amazon workers experience the
highest injury rates and the workload becomes especially grueling.
'Peak season' documents obtained by Motherboard list all potential events
that could impact Amazon operations. During this time, Amazon creates lists
of dates, times, and the number of participants for protests planned in each
country in Europe where Amazon operates, data seemingly gathered from events
pages on social media.
The source with knowledge of Amazon's Global Security Operations
surveillance practices told Motherboard that in 2019 analysts were sent to
France to monitor the activity of the Yellow Vests social movement in an
attempt to gain information about where they would stage their protests.
A report on the 2019 peak season that mentioned Amazon believed there were
ties between Amazon warehouse workers and Yellow Vests in Paris said,
"Protests in Paris are planned, both by striking union members and [Yellow
Vests], on 7 December. A march is planned by Yellow Vest activists [sic]
from Bercy at 1130 CET to porte de Versailles via Austerlitz, Denfert, Place
de la Catalogne and porte de Vanves. It is unclear whether striking unions
will participate in the same march organized by [Yellow Vests] but it is
expected of them to join starting at Montparnasse."
A report on peak season risks to Amazon in Italy, deeming the risk level
"moderate," chronicles in detail ongoing union activities of its warehouse
workers and delivery drivers, noting specific complaints made by delivery
drivers and warehouse workers in union negotiations, such as Sunday shifts
and excessive workloads, as well as the number of delivery drivers who
joined unions and attended union meetings.
"It was reported that in October at DLO1, 10 DAs [delivery associates] out
of 51 became members of the [Italian General Confederation of Labour] and an
assembly was organized with 14 green badge DAs attending," the report reads.
"Potential labor initiatives at Amazon by traditional unions may constitute
an attractive opportunity for SiCobas to attend and gain visibility," it
continues, referencing an Italian labor union that has organized Amazon
warehouse strikes on Black Friday. "The group is known for more disruptive
and subversive protest MOs, although history of previous blockages and
disruptive actions showed law enforcement generally react in a timely
manner."
Another one of these reports from 2019 describes the activity of
environmental groups in Germany, highlighting information gathered from
social media.
"Greenpeace Germany also posted another video featuring Amazon on their
social media on [December 5] in a similar style as previous campaigns. The
video features a woman asking Alexa about the best bargains for Christmas
presents, to which Alexa responds that they should make their own presents
and spend time with family to protect the environment instead of indulging
in consumerism," a report from December 2019 says.
"As of writing, the video has received over 100 likes and has been shared 28
times to date. The video does not call for any direct action or indicate any
upcoming protest activity, but future action such as boycott cannot be ruled
out. It should be noted that increased social media activity by Greenpeace
regarding a company or organization has, on occasions, preceded direct
action against that companythis is the 3rd Amazon related post in 2 weeks.
The international environmental organization Greenpeace has called out
Amazon for its contracts with oil and gas companies, and criticized Bezos's
"climate pledge" in 2019 to reduce net zero carbon emissions by 2040 for
failing to account for the carbon footprint of its supply chain. In 2019,
Greenpeace protesters staged a demonstration on the roof of an Amazon
warehouse in Germany.
Rolf Skar, campaigns director at Greenpeace USA, told Motherboard, in
response to news that Amazon was tracking the activity of the organization,
that the company is mistaken in its assessment that Greenpeace is a threat
to Amazon.
"We're not violent. We dont destroy property," he said. "Their problem is a
lack of climate leadership. I'm not surprised but I'm disappointed that
theyre putting energy in the wrong place. We have done a lot of work
holding the tech giants accountable for their growing footprint. There's a
lot to suggest progress. But Amazon is an outlier. Amazon has refused to
stop using powerful AI technologies to help fossil fuel companies drill
around the world and they have a problem with morale internally on this."
In September 2019, more than one thousand Amazon employees staged a walkout
in protest of Amazon's failure to reduce its carbon emissions and its
contracts with oil and gas companies.
The report also shared intelligence on a December 6, 2019 protest in Vienna
in solidarity with protests in Iran over the rising cost of fuel. The report
includes an image of the route for the protest obtained from Google maps.
"Clear participation rates are not known," the report reads. "However, no
disruption to operations has yet been reported on 6 December."
In response to allegations that Amazon's Global Security Operations Centers
tracked environmentalist and social justice movements, Levandowsi, the
spokesperson for Amazon said, "Like most companies, we have a team of
analysts that help prepare for external events such as weather, power
outages, or large community gatherings like concerts or demonstrations that
could disrupt traffic or affect the safety and security of our buildings and
the people who work at them."
Stefan Clauwaert, a legal and human rights advisor at the European Trade
Union Confederation, told Motherboard that Amazon's intelligence activities
could potentially violate EU data collection laws and labor conventions and
standards outlined by the UN's International Labour Organization (ILO) and
the Council of Europe's European Social Charter, both of which guarantee
workers the freedom to associate with unions as well as the right to
organize and collectively bargain. The European Union's 2018 data privacy
law, known as the General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR, requires
companies to disclose their collection and usage of personal dataand
explain why the data is being collected.
"In the EU, we have regulations which protect workers and trade unions,"
said Clauwaret. "I can envision many legal avenues for actions against
Amazon for these activities, many more than exist in the United States. But
what we need to do now is make noise to our bodies about the violations and
what Amazon is doing."
In addition to Chaibi, five other members of the European Parliament,
including Emmanuel Maurel of France, Marie Toussaint of France, Younous
Omarjee of France, Brando Benifei of Italy, and Manon Aubry of France who
signed onto the October letter to Bezos criticizing Amazon's surveillance of
workers, responded to the documents obtained by Motherboard with strong
disapproval.
"Amazon's systemic use of military surveillance methods against unionists
and activists is deeply alarming," said Aubry, who is also a senior member
of France's France Insoumise, France's main radical left party. "Amazon and
Jeff Bezos act as if they were above the law because they have accumulated
unprecedented levels of wealth and power. This has to stop."
"We already knew that the world within Bezos' [empire] is a world of social
suffering and environmental destruction," Toussaint, another member of
European Parliament, said. "Now, it becomes clear that this is also a world
with no democracy."
Hoffman, president of UNI Global Union, which represents more than 20
million trade union workers around the world, says that Amazon's use of
anti-union tactics common in the United States in Europe and around the
world is creating a global human rights crisis.
"Most American companies that try to succeed in Europe have adapted to the
fact that there are strong unions here. Those that haven't, such as Walmart
and Toy R' Us have left. But Amazon is an outlier," she said. "This isnt
the way companies operate in Europeignoring the law, spying on workers,
using every page of the US union busting playbook, as if they dont have
enough power and money on their own. They need to know they're not going to
get away with that in Europe."
