Online retailer Amazon has come in for criticism since it was revealed they electronically tag their factory workers – does this represent the ‘new world’ of work? Scottish Government

“Every age has its estimate of the pressures and perils of work. Adam Smith, writing in the 18th century, focused on the toil and trauma of work. Karl Marx, writing in the 19th century, spoke of the alienation of labour.

“In our own time, employment – for more and more people – is being stretched to embrace new personal tribulations and emotional troubles.

“As revealed by the Financial Times, Amazon have been deploying electronic tagging on some employees. This scandal is one powerful indication of such torments.

“The Amazon employees, based at the company’s flagship factory in Staffordshire, entered into labour contracts that required them to carry handheld devices. These electronic devices were, in turn, used to measure worker productivity in real time.

“Workers carrying such devices were bestowed with percentages for their speed in completing designated tasks. Fast work scored high marks. The flipside, however, was the latent message that one might get axed for crimes like failing to keep up.

“The devices also transmitted continual messages and warnings from management. Performance management thus covered updates on the grave risks of talking for too long with fellow employees (or the perils of taking too many toilet breaks).

“Guardian journalist Zoe Williams declared Amazon’s electronic tagging part of “the new shamelessness” with which corporations treat lowly paid workers. This “shamelessness” encompasses a creeping criminalisation of employees, one that at once monitors and humiliates workers.

“How might we best understand the spread of a workplace culture of electronic tagging? One place to start arguably concerns the wholesale shift away from jobs-for-life to short-term contract labour.

“The end of a job-for-life, and of the associated notion of a “career” developed within a single organisation, has been … “

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