Amazon is supposedly surveilling its Flex shipment chauffeurs in personal Facebook groups

Amazon is covertly keeping an eye on personal social networks groups utilized by Amazon Flex employees to discuss their working conditions. According to what appear to be official company documents found online by Vice, the selling huge utilizes personnel to track and classify conversations in closed Facebook groups, public subreddits, and on Twitter. Some posts are then “escalated” to internal Amazon teams and business leadership.

As Vice notes, these reports are seemingly assembled mainly to recognize and react to grievances from Flex shipment drivers about things like bugs in the business’s app. Amazon likewise appears to be keeping tabs on more sensitive conversations.

Amazon is widely known for employing aggressive techniques against employees trying to organize or protest. Amazon quickly got rid of the listings and said they had actually been published in mistake.

*The files discovered online show Amazon is covertly keeping track of lots of personal Facebook groups utilized by Flex employees in the US, UK, and Spain.*

Those compiling the reports note what news posts are shared, consisting of those referencing plans by Flex chauffeurs (called “Delivery Partners” or “DPs” by Amazon) to arrange strikes and demonstrations.

Tracking conversation among Flex drivers on social media would remain in line with this past behavior. Flex drivers are not official workers however self-employed employees who make deliveries from their own cars. They’re paid in per hour blocks and Amazon says they make between $18 and $25 a hour, depending on suggestions and the variety of deliveries they make. Flex chauffeurs do not get benefits like health insurance or sick pay readily available to full-time employees

In countries like the US, where the job market has been struck hard by the pandemic, reports suggest competitors for this sort of gig work is fierce. In recent months, Amazon Flex chauffeurs have apparently turned to techniques like using automated bots or even hanging their phones in trees near dispatch centers in order to claim increasingly-rare delivery slots.

According to the files shared by Vice, Amazon’s social media tracking for Flex motorists covers lots of groups in the United States, UK, and Spain. These consist of personal Facebook pages like “Amazon Flex Las Vegas” and “Official Amazon Flex Drivers of Portland.” You can read more information on the tracking procedure, including a full list of the groups under observation, in Vice‘s initial report here We have actually reached out to Amazon for comment on the story and will update this article if we hear more.