Making personal sacrifice for a worthy cause is laudible and I would not
want to discourage anyone from doing so, but making personal sacrifice
with no effect strikes me as some kind of insanity. And, by the way,
being disagreed with in no way limits your freedom of speech. If you
decide to shut up just because someone disagrees with you then you are
the one who is limiting your freedom of speech. Also, being disagreed
with does not constitute verbal assault.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely
to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of
wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in
which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases
and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a
refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has
good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of
science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is
just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected
by-what, religion? No, by good science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/29/2020 4:33 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Roger,
I have discovered that if I try to tell the few people with whom I have
contact, about issues and convince them that certain things that our
government is doing are wrong and that actions ought to be taken, people don't
want to hear what I have to say. The only people who are amenable are the ones
who already agree. If a labor organizer goes into a work place and can
convince people to organize around a work issue as once was possible, that's a
whole different thing. But of course, given how work is currently organized and
distributed, it must be much more difficult. Back in the 60's, I participated
in peace demonstrations. I was a member of an organization, members of which
did that and even some of my neighbors, who were not members of any peace
groups, were demonstrating.
Getting back to Chris Hedges who does want to see organizing for social change,
he also appears to believe that taking personal responsibility for one's
actions and doing what is right, is something that one should do on an
individual basis, regardless of whether or not other people are doing it or
whether or not you will actually be successful. Of course, along with being a
socialist, he does have a personal history, part of which is that he is an
ordained Presbyterian minister. So for him, a bit of personal sacrifice in
order to do what is right, comes naturally. He also gave up a good paying,
prestigeous position as a New York Times bureau chief, in order to speak out
against the Iraq war.
I, too, have a personal history. It has nothing to do with religion. But it
does have something to do with feeling that I never belonged anywhere. That
feeling is a psychological reality, related to growing up from infancy as a
visually impaired female from a Jewish background in a Christian country. I
wasn't fully sighted, and I have never been accepted as an equal by sighted
people, even when I had a great deal of useable vision. I attended programs, as
a child, at an agency for the blind, but I was not blind back then. My extended
family always treated me as if I were different. The result is that I resist
being part of groups. I resist systems, and I question the rules and values
that other people accept. That is why I didn't accept the Jewish religion as a
child. It is why I questioned the assumptions about Russia and Communism on
which the cold war was based back when I was oly 13 years old. It is why,
eventually, I could begin to question the acceptance and glorification of
Israel by all the Jewish people I knew. And it is also why I could never be a
well disciplined party member. It is the reason that I can accept the fact that
different people see the world differently, have different values, and can do
good things, things that help other human beings and other living things in
different ways. Some people do it through political means or economic means, or
just through individual personal acts. I have very strong views about what is
wrong with the world and what I would like the changes to be. I wish there were
a place where I could state those views without being punished for them. But
everyone else has the same wish and should have the same right without being
verbally annihilated, even our friend in Egypt.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 3:01 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company's
Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups
What I mean is that personal boycotts serve only to hurt oneself while
doing virtually nothing to the target. Yet, the ones who engage in
personal boycotts always want to brag about it and preach that others
should engage in it too without an effort to organize an effective
boycott. If you are not in a position to do such organizing then you
simply are not in a position to do such organizing. If you can't you
just can't. But that does not change that doing something that is
ineffective is still ineffective even if you can't do anything else. As
unfortunate as it is to be ineffective it is still nothing to brag
about. You can stand on principle, but if it only hurts yourself to do
so then bragging about how you are standing on principle tends to cause
other people to laugh at you because of it. In your personal position I
think you are doing about as much as you can. There have been numerous
times that I have come close to suggesting that you do something in
particular that would be a step toward organizing, but then I remember
that your physical condition largely prohibits what I have in mind and
so I refrain from the suggestion that I was about to make. Right now,
though, you are disseminating propaganda by electronic means, that is,
the Internet. Unless I am unaware of it you do so only on this list and
I might suggest that you look around for some other lists or message
boards to spread the word more widely, but I can tell that you are not
in much of a position to do much more. It would be really frustrating to
be in your position before the advent of the Internet. But whether you
are in a position to do much or not it still remains that doing
something that is ineffective is still ineffective. It remains that if
you deprive yourself with no effect against the intended target you are
still depriving yourself for nothing. If the tactic of the boycott is
really that important to you then I would suggest that you do some
research to find one that has already been organized that you can
sympathize with and join it. Your simple decision to join in a boycott
will still not accomplish much in that you are only one person, but
since you are disseminating propaganda anyway then you can probably be
most helpful to a boycott by disseminating information about it on the
Internet. The total amount of accomplishment you achieve, though, by
cutting your own throat and bragging about it is to exist with a cut
throat.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely
to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of
wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in
which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases
and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a
refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has
good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of
science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is
just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected
by-what, religion? No, by good science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/29/2020 2:30 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Roger,
I don't know what you mean, but it feels like an attack. I have been wanting
to continue to participate on this list because it is interesting and
intellectually stimulating. But it seems like if I write about what I think and
feel or if I have responses to what you write, what I get back is insults.
That's happened with another list member as well. It's possible that I'm not
expressing myself accurately. But I doubt that, that's the problem. And because
you're incorrect and I'm not masochistic, I will just stop contributing my
thoughts and opinions to this list. I will probably still forward occasional
articles, in case there's anyone who might want to read them. However, Blind
Democdracy is clearly no longer a place for open, democratic discussion. As in
the rest of our country, dissent seems not to be tolerated.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Sunday, November 29, 2020 2:02 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company's
Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups
Yes, not all of us are in a good position to organize. In fact, a lot of us are
not in a good position to organize. But nearly all of us are in a position to
hurt ourselves and brag about it if we want to.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely
to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of
wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in
which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases
and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a
refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has
good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of
science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is
just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected
by-what, religion? No, by good science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/29/2020 10:18 AM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Yes, that's true. And there are certainly people who organize. But not all of
us are in a position to do that, just as in the same way, not all of us are
capable of making the individual ethical choices that some of us can make. For
example, I understand why Chris Hedges is no longer eating meat and I agree
with his choice. But I haven't gotten to the point where I can make that
choice. And I buy stuff from Amazon when I have no choice. I'm an old blind
woman with a hearing loss and other disabilities and health problems so I can
do only what I'm capable of doing. But I think that to the extent that I see
issues, if I can do something, I should do it. I was thinking about our
discussion last night and I thought about the people in Europe in the 30's and
40's who couldn't fight against the Nazis
genocide against the Jews, but they were able to rescue individuals and
families and hide them. One can't criticize them for not being able to
organize against the SS, (although some of them were able to do so in an
effective underground), but we can afford individual successes in saving a few
families or individuals. Or if you lived in America in the early 1800's in the
south, were a property owner, and made a decision to free your slaves, but were
unable to convince your neighbors to do the same, should you be criticized for
not changing the system? I was raised in the tradition of, I guess you could
call it, the Jewish labor movement. In the 40's and 50's, there was still a
good deal of obvious anti-Semitism, even in New York. One did what one could
and one kept alert. I remember that my parents and I, and my aunt and uncle
were planning to eat dinner out one night in a neighborhood Chinese restaurant.
But then we didn't go to that restaurant because my aunt said that they had
recently refused to serve an African American family. There are many ways to
look at the world. Seeing it through the lens of economics and class struggle
is one of them. If one can't accept that there are different ways through which
human beings come to understand reality, each with its own positives and
negatives, and that there are many ways to try to make the world a better
place, then one is being as narrow and rigid in one's thinking as the right
wing religious fanatics whom one criticizes.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran Bailey
(Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2020 10:08 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Secret Amazon Reports Expose the
Company's Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups
Well, if large numbers of people made individual choices that might have an
effect, but in order for it to have an effect they have to collectively make
the same choice and make the same choice that will have the desired effect. How
do we get them to collectively make that choice? The only way to do it is by
organizing them. Moralizing is not going to organize them.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely
to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of
wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in
which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases
and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a
refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has
good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of
science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is
just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected
by-what, religion? No, by good science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/28/2020 9:38 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
That's quite a response! I never said that what I do personally can change the
system. I agree that for real change to occur, social movements have to be
organized. But what I was saying was that if large numbers of people made
individual choices, those choices might have a tiny impact. And of course, that
magnetic cable is probably produced by low wage workers in Asia. And the facdt
is that I don't like the blind man from whom I'm purchasing it. I think he's
obnoxious, given previous contacts I've had with him. But we live in the system
that exists and I'd rather help an individual disabled person make a profit
than Amazon. Also, the reason that I wrote what I did on this tiny list rather
than on another blindness list is precisely that I knew that it would alienate
most people who read it. I wanted to say what I think, but I was not trying to
influence other people's actions. I was not trying to reach large numbers of
blind people to try to convince them to boycott Amazon. I don't have control
over anyone else's acdtions.
I would like to believe all of the things that I hear and read about how the
Left is organizing and about how there are signs of success, and that some day,
there will be a people's movement that will put a new, humane system in place.
But everything that I see happening in this country, the vast changes that
have taken place during my lifetime, do not give me much hope. Our society is
impersonal, fragmented, and taken over by corporate power and militarism. It's
actually a disguised police state.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Roger Loran
Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2020 9:13 PM
To: blind-democracy <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Secret Amazon Reports Expose the
Company's Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups
If you want to make yourself feel heroic then go ahead and feel heroic, but I
think that is about the only thing you will accomplish. Sure, you can buy a
magnetic cable from a single blind man in the Midwest, but where do you think
he got the magnetic cable? He didn't make it in his own basement workshop. It
was made by workers in a factory being exploited by a big company. And if
Amazon is committing horrors against its workers then what is the company that
owns the factory that produced the magnetic cable that the single blind man in
the Midwest is selling doing to its workers? I will say this before, but I will
say it again.
Boycotts can have effects, but they need to be organized boycotts with specific
goals. Again, I will use the example of a woman I used to know who started her
personal boycott of Exxon because of the Alaskan oil spill. She never missed an
opportunity to proclaim that she did not buy Exxon gasoline and to implore
others not to buy it either. Never mind that she didn't buy it before she
started her personal boycott and never mind that most of the people she
preached to didn't buy it anyway either. It was one of the most expensive
gasoline available to them and they tended to choose the cheaper brands. She
also did not consider that she was probably buying it anyway rebranded for the
discount market. Her personal boycott really accomplished nothing but to get
people to laugh at her and to give here a reputation as something of a nut
case. But suppose it had been something that she had actually bought before
she started her personal boycott. It could have been products from Wallmart.
It could have been some clothing line known for its sweatshops.
Honestly, it could have been most anything. All the big companies engage in
nefarious practices in their never ending quest for profits and you can say
that they need to be boycotted and you can mount your personal boycott. Guess
what? They won't even notice. Your personal boycott will do nothing toward
stopping their nefarious practices. The only thing you will accomplish is to
deprive yourself of the products or services that they sell. You will be
hurting yourself while not hurting them at all.
Then if you preach to other people that they should join your personal boycott
you will only manage to get laughed at for it. If all those blind people joined
together in your boycott there just might be enough that Amazon might feel a
minor pinprick, but I doubt that that they will even notice it and, besides,
just how are you going to get all blind people to cooperate? The problem is
systemic, not the evil of single companies. I mentioned the nefarious practices
of big companies, but the only reason that their nefarious practices are so bad
is that they can practice them. They have the resources. Do you really think
that a small company would not hire Pinkertons if they could afford it? Of
course they would because the name of the game is profit. That is why they go
into business in the first place, to make a profit. And for small companies all
these spy agencies are expensive enough that it would cut into the profits too
much. At a certain level of revenue the expense of such measures are offset by
the profit that is increased because of the expenditures. None of these
companies would balk at the chance to screw over their employees or anyone else
to increase profits though. That makes it systemic. So what happens when you
mount a personal boycott of every company that unfairly exploits its workers?
You have to stop buying. If you stop buying you deprive yourself of food,
medicine, clothing, shelter, everything you need and consume. And the companies
will not even notice. Let's look at examples of when a boycott actually works.
Suppose there is a union organizing effort or a strike against one company. The
company may hire scabs to keep operating while the labor strife is going on.
The union wants to deprive the company of profit until their demands are met.
Depriving the company of profits is exactly where they should strike because
profit is what the company is all about. The union can easily get the union
members to stop buying the product because they are right in the fight and can
easily see that they are hurting the company with the collective boycott. Then
they put out the word to all of their sympathizers that they should boycott the
company too. When a sufficient number of people join the boycott the company
stops selling its products and its profits cease or diminish.
That will force them into concessions where nothing else will. But without a
specific goal in mind and without an organized effort, but instead just
personally calling for a boycott because you think the company is a bad thing,
you get nowhere. Then there is the problem of framing it as a matter of
morality. When you tell people to stop buying from a certain company because it
is a matter of morality you are likely to cause resentment against yourself and
your own cause. Telling them that it is the moral thing to do comes off
sounding a lot like evangelist religious types. Thou art bound for hell because
thou art immoral. Thou art immoral because thou buyest from the big bad immoral
company. What are they going to think when they are called immoral for trying
to function in the world and system they find themselves living in the best
they can? If you are going to organize people you point out to them that they
have personal interests that can be best fulfilled by cooperating with other
people who have mutual interests that can be achieved best by banding together.
Since you want to talk about human nature look at the human nature that comes
into play with this tactic.
It is human nature to cooperate with one another to attain things of mutual
interest. If it was not then no civilization could have ever been built. To
just accept that greed and bickering among the people with mutual interests is
human nature is to buy into what the exploiters want you to buy into in order
that they can continue to be exploiters. If you are going to buy into that you
may as well give up and not even call for personal boycotts. After all, a
personal boycott only deprives yourself of things that human nature causes you
to have greed for. If you want to have any kind of effect with boycotting then
look for an organized boycott and join in. Participate in it and promote it.
Don't just moralize.
___
Sam Harris
“Are you really surprised by the endurance of religion? What ideology is likely
to be more durable than one that conforms, at every turn, to our powers of
wishful thinking? Hope is easy; knowledge is hard. Science is the one domain in
which we human beings make a truly heroic effort to counter our innate biases
and wishful thinking. Science is the one endeavor in which we have developed a
refined methodology for separating what a person hopes is true from what he has
good reason to believe. The methodology isn't perfect, and the history of
science is riddled with abject failures of scientific objectivity. But that is
just the point-these have been failures of science, discovered and corrected
by-what, religion? No, by good science.”
― Sam Harris
On 11/28/2020 4:05 PM, Miriam Vieni wrote:
Carl,
I have two responses to what you've said and I knew that you or someone would
say what you've said.
1. It's possible that, in fact, the basic fault is in the system. Well, I know
it's a terrible system. However, even with the best system that one can
imagine, there will still be issues because of the flaws in human nature, one
of which is greed and another of which is the need of some people to have
control over other people. I know that people dedicated to Marxist theory,
believe that all of the problems are caused by the system, but if one studies
psychology, sociology, and anthropology and looks at one's own life experience,
it becomes obvious that the economic system is just part, although an important
part, of the problem.
2. I can't change the system, but as an individual, I can make choices that do
not contribute to evil. I can buy a magnetic cord for my VR Stream from
Amazon, a huge world wide Monopoly which is swallowing up businesses large and
small and partnering with our national security state, or I can buy the same
magnetic cord from a blind man who runs his own business in the midwest. I can
depend on retirement income from investments from large corporations which are
part of the war machine or which ruin the environment, or I can get retirement
income from municipal bonds which fund hospitals, universities and
transportation systems. If I'm Chris Hedges, I choose to no longer eat meat
because of the inhumane ways in which cattle are raised and the ways in which
the raising of cattle contributes to the destruction of our environment. In
other words, I can just talk about how we are all being screwed, or I can make
some sacrifices in my life, depending upon my capacity to do so, to make the
world a better place, even if it's only a teeny bit better because of my
efforts. That's why, back in the late 60's, although I knew I couldn't do
anything to change race relations, I did think I could contribute to their
improvement by adopting transracially. In retrospect, I don't think that I did
anything at all except to make myself feel heroic because I tried to do what I
thought was right, but ended up having to fight for the right to do it because
we were a blind couple. And in the end, for complicated reasons that I won't go
into here, I'm not sure that I did a service to anyone. But I certainly did try
to do what I could, to make one tiny change for the better.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, November 28, 2020 3:35 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: jamesjarvis98 <jamesjarvis98@xxxxxxxxx>; Matthew
<mcblack@xxxxxxxxx>; delores selset <dselset@xxxxxxx>
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Secret Amazon Reports Expose the
Company's Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups
*************
A long but highly informative article.
Around 1930 my dad became an Activist, joining protests and picket lines. In
over 100 years the protests and the demonstrations continue. At times the
working class makes small gains, and at times they lose their hard won gains.
But in truth, nothing changes. While the struggle continues, it never resolves
the basic flaw in the System. The flaw is the System itself, Capitalism. Two
Classes, the Oppressor and the Oppressed.
Carl Jarvis
----------
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 Amazon’s Global Security Operations
Center reveal the company’s 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 operatives—from the
notorious spy agency known for its union-busting activities—to 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 bargain—and 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 Europe—including
Greenpeace and Fridays For Future, environmental activist Greta
Thunberg's global climate strike movement—and 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 France—and
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 we’re 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 reasons—in 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.
"It’s 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 strategies—despite 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
Amazon’s 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 Slovakia—noting 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
surveilling—that 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 won’t 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.
"Amazon’s spying on its own employees is especially odious," Wyden said.
"It’s 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
company—this 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 don’t destroy property," he said. "Their
problem is a lack of climate leadership. I'm not surprised but I'm
disappointed that they’re 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
data—and 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 isn’t the way companies operate in Europe—ignoring
the law, spying on workers, using every page of the US union
busting playbook, as if they don’t have enough power and money on their own.
They need to know they're not going to get away with that in Europe."
