Amazon workers in coventry: A case study for resisting digital surveillance

Amazon workers in Coventry have been at the cutting edge of a fight against one of the world’s most powerful corporations. They had a big year in 2024, holding the UK’s first-ever Amazon strike in January, and voting on union recognition in July. If passed, this vote would have been the UK’s first instance of Amazon recognising a union. The vote failed by a thin margin, but there is evidence to suggest that Amazon made use of union-busting tactics to influence workers in their favour. The Guardian reported that Amazon hired significant numbers of new staff to swamp the electorate with unorganised workers, held anti-union meetings, and distributed leaflets with QR codes that auto-generated resignation emails from the union. Ever since, Coventry’s workers have been preparing to fight Amazon’s immense power once again, with the hope of achieving union status.

I sat down with them beforehand to ask about working conditions at Amazon, which many have suggested are exploitative and overbearing.

It is difficult to fight a transnational corporation such as Amazon without uniting workers across the globe. This is why, on a rainy Monday evening, Amazon workers Galen Zavala Sherby and Jonathan Rosenblum travelled from the United States to speak with the people of Coventry. I sat down with them beforehand to ask about working conditions at Amazon, which many have suggested are exploitative and overbearing. Galen, who works in a delivery station, said employees are monitored by ‘cameras’ and a system called ‘time off task’, which Amazon uses to constantly punish the slowest 5% of their workforce. Amazon’s push for greater efficiency is unrelenting, allowing it to maintain a constant churn at the expense of workers’ health. Kate Crawford, in her book Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence, describes how some warehouses are stocked with painkiller vending machines to encourage workers to push through the physical strain.

Delivery drivers such as Jonathan get into trouble for being below the algorithmically determined expectation of when their packages should be delivered, showing how surveillance pushes them beyond their limits. ‘There are typically 250 to 350 packages to be delivered in a ten-hour period. This is highly monitored and regulated.’

‘At the end of the day we get a read out, which management always has, showing when the algorithm expected us to deliver every one of those 300 or so packages, and when we actually delivered them. If your numbers are above the curve or at the curve, you are okay; if they are below the curve, eventually you get into trouble.’

Jonathan explained that the AI system often wrongly chastises drivers for checking an address, looking at road signs, or simply sneezing, as this is counted as being distracted from work.

Drivers are also often fired by AI, says Jonathan, as an omnidirectional camera monitors every aspect of their driving, feeding back to an algorithm that reprimands drivers for averting their eyes from the road. Jonathan explained that the AI system often wrongly chastises drivers for checking an address, looking at road signs, or simply sneezing, as this is counted as being distracted from work.

Although it is impossible for the guard tower to be watching the entire prison at once, the prisoners assume they are being watched and act as if they are.

Galen compared Amazon workplaces to a panopticon – an idea coined by Jeremy Bentham for a prison in which a central guard tower maintains control through fear. Although it is impossible for the guard tower to be watching the entire prison at once, the prisoners assume they are being watched and act as if they are.

‘It is less the company making use of any punitive action on you as a worker and more the constant threat of it’, Galen explained. ‘You never know when you are being observed so you always behave as if you are.’ This panopticon-like environment makes it very difficult to organise with workers, as people are concerned about losing their jobs if they speak up about the conditions.

‘There is a certain amount of fear’, said Jonathan, ‘but we can’t just leave it at that. I think workers are increasingly pissed off about this workplace which is being created by Amazon where people don’t have freedom to speak their minds and don’t have freedom to act as they should be able to. And that’s why there is a growing movement of resistance.’

The session sometimes drifted into general discussion, with the Amazon issue becoming a microcosm through which people debated their anxieties concerning society at large.

Resisting corporate monopolies is not easy work. Monday’s meeting sometimes lost focus due to the variety of interests brought in by its diverse audience of trade unionists, Amazon workers and concerned citizens. The session sometimes drifted into general discussion, with the Amazon issue becoming a microcosm through which people debated their anxieties concerning society at large. Although this distracted from the meeting’s focus (which Jonathan sometimes had to reiterate), it gave an insight into people’s anxieties about surveillance, exploitation and worker subordination.

An older gentleman brought up Thatcher, and the disempowerment of the working classes during her defeat of the miners’ strikes in 1984-1985. He lamented that the subordination of workers’ rights for the benefit of the ruling classes seems to be unending, implying that the ‘defeat’ of the Coventry strikes by Amazon is a part of this neoliberal trajectory.

However, the very meeting he was speaking in, which was organised by the Trade Union Coventry council, implies that unions have not completely abandoned workers.

Another older man suggested that unions have failed the working classes, becoming mere representatives of corporate elites. He argued that corporations can only be fought by workers who organise autonomously. However, the very meeting he was speaking in, which was organised by the Trade Union Coventry council, implies that unions have not completely abandoned workers.

Amongst these slightly more cynical perspectives, a young Amazon worker told her story of joining the strikes. She was initially unsupportive but came round after speaking to her coworkers and hearing their difficulties. This kind of social interaction, founded on empathy, open-mindedness, and human-to-human connection, is exactly what Amazon seeks to destroy. It is also precisely the kind of connection that unions can provide and Amazon cannot. With human resources departments made up mostly of automated chatbots, Amazon’s weaponisation of automation could potentially be its downfall.

As the integration of technology into workplaces bolsters surveillance, resisting corporate exploitation becomes increasingly difficult. However, Coventry is a strong example of the resistance of communities in this world of digital exploitation, surveillance, and control.