LFI Course Materials 2020/Week seven

Week 7: Worker surveillance and the Amazonification of Everything

• Real time lecture April 20th 11 Pacific/2 Eastern on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/9129428892

Overview

For most of us, coronavirus is resulting in devastating personal and economic losses, and a serious uncertainty and disease about what the future holds. That's likely not true for Amazon, one of the most powerful corporations in the world, and one that is well-positioned to emerge from all this even more powerful than ever. This week, Janus Rose, editor at Vice's technology publication, Motherboard, joins us to talk about Amazon and its discontents, in particular the ways that Amazon uses surveillance to thwart worker organizing, other ways that it uses data to profit, what else is happening in the realm of workplace surveillance, and how we can prepare to fight back.

Readings

• How Amazon automatically tracks and fires warehouse workers for ‘productivity’
• When the real threat is worker surveillance, not the robot apocalypse
• The inequalities of workplace surveillance
• Coronavirus is a labor crisis, and a general strike may be next
• Workplace monitoring and surveillance (optional long read)

Guest lecturer

Janus Rose, editor at Vice's Motherboard

Discussion

TBD

Tasks

• Lecture, readings, discussion forum, and final project work