Hey im not sure if its widely known or not but if you're ordering packages on amazon this season make sure to tap "thank my driver" after getting the delivery bc 5$ will go to the delivery driver who dropped it off and its covered by amazon so its free money to give away for free and it goes to families like mine who struggle this season so idk just in case you're already ordering from them it's a super small thing thats incredibly appreciated and noticed by the drivers and the families they support
The company is surveilling dozens of private Facebook groups in the US, the UK, and Spain, according to both an internal web tool and reports left on the open internet.
From the blockbuster report by Lauren Kaori Gurley and Joseph Cox, posted 1 Sept 2020:
Amazon is monitoring the conversations of Amazon Flex drivers in dozens of private Facebook groups in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Spain, according to an internal web tool and reports left on the open internet and viewed by Motherboard.
According to the files left online, Amazon corporate employees are getting regular reports about the social media posts of its Flex drivers on nominally private pages, and are using these reports to diagnose problems as well as monitor, for example, drivers “planning for any strike or protest against Amazon.”
See also: ‘We Are Treated Like Animals,’ Say Amazon Flex Drivers
Both white collar and blue collar workers for Amazon have complained of a variety of inhuman working conditions, even they have it better than the absolute lowest rung on the Amazon employment chart: “Flex” drivers, who lack job security, benefits, and decent pay—and who say they are desperate for change.
See also: Amazon Is Hiring an Intelligence Analyst to Track 'Labor Organizing Threats’
The company recently posted two job listings for analysts that can keep an eye on sensitive and confidential topics “including labor organizing threats against the company.” Amazon is looking to hire an “Intelligence Analyst” and a “Sr Intelligence Analyst” for its Global Security Operations’ (GSO) Global Intelligence Program (GIP), the team that’s responsible for physical and corporate security operations such as insider threats and industrial espionage.
The job ads list several kinds of threats, such as “protests, geopolitical crises, conflicts impacting operations,” but focuses on “organized labor” in particular, mentioning it three times in one of the listings.
See also: Amazon Drivers Are Hanging Smartphones in Trees to Get More Work
A strange phenomenon has emerged near Amazon.com Inc. delivery stations and Whole Foods stores in the Chicago suburbs: smartphones dangling from trees. Contract delivery drivers are putting them there to get a jump on rivals seeking orders, according to people familiar with the matter.
Someone places several devices in a tree located close to the station where deliveries originate. Drivers in on the plot then sync their own phones with the ones in the tree and wait nearby for an order pickup. The reason for the odd placement, according to experts and people with direct knowledge of Amazon’s operations, is to take advantage of the handsets’ proximity to the station, combined with software that constantly monitors Amazon’s dispatch network, to get a split-second jump on competing drivers.
That drivers resort to such extreme methods is emblematic of the ferocious competition for work in a pandemic-ravaged U.S. economy suffering from double-digit unemployment. Much the way milliseconds can mean millions to hedge funds using robotraders, a smartphone perched in a tree can be the key to getting a $15 delivery route before someone else.
See also: Amazon’s Next-Day Delivery Has Brought Chaos And Carnage To America’s Streets — But The World’s Biggest Retailer Has A System To Escape The Blame
