In the motion picture classic “Modern Times,” Charlie Chaplin takes a break from the monotony of the factory line. Just as he settles down, a screen behind him blares to life.
“Hey! Quit stalling! Get back to work!” his boss shouts. Not even a moment of Chaplin’s workday is excluded from extensive oversight from his employer. Perhaps you think this represents a dystopia, a future which could only happen in the worst possible world. Believe it or not, Amazon recently filed for a patent of a wristband to tracks the minute movements of employees, buzzing if they make a wrong move.
Amazon already tracks the movements of its delivery drivers. According to a BBC Inside Out investigation, drivers had to maintain a tight schedule of about three minutes per package, a task made more difficult by London traffic. One driver, desperate to ensure he met his quota of 200 daily packages, resorted to defecating in a bag in his car, rather than spending time in a restroom. A former supervisor alleges one of his workers had driven for 11 hours every day for three months straight, seven days a week.
Even if these extremes would not be reached in the warehouses where they would be implemented, the potential for bosses to exploit their workers is inherent in this system. As an employer, you would know exactly when and where an employee stopped to scratch his back. As an employee, you are now incentivized to work without rest for hours on end, knowing even a 30-second break will not go unnoticed by the all-knowing overseer. The worker is no longer human, but rather a machine while on duty.
According to Adam Boyle from Geek Wire, in a statement, Amazon claims, “The speculation about this patent is misguided…. By moving equipment to associates’ wrists, we could free up their hands from scanners and their eyes from computer screens.”
However, I suspect laborers would rather use scanners than be hands-free at the cost of being tracked every second of their workday. At what point will they refuse to accept their mechanization at the hands of their employers? Or will they submit even to this amount of control?
When reached for comment by the Italian technology magazine Inno3, Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said, “The challenging task is [to have] a job of quality, and not a job with a wristband.”
Essentially, he feels it is possible to create high-quality jobs for workers without subjecting them to the constraints of a wristband. I support his sentiment; after all, I feel a lack of restraints on the average person is to be commended in almost every case.
On the other hand, Amazon seems to have all the power in this situation. If the company mandates the use of these wristbands, employees who try to reject it may well be replaced. This is the inherent risk in a job requiring little skill: there is always someone else the boss can hire as a replacement.
It is unnerving to consider many workers worldwide could be tracked constantly for hours on end. Unfortunately, in the “Information Age,” this data has become all too easy to acquire. If it does eventually get implemented, hopefully Amazon will not overwork its factory employees to the extent that they too will feel forced to use the toilet at their workstations.