Amazon’s anti-union stance would possibly spill into the apps for workers. The Intercept says it obtained inner paperwork detailing a deliberate employee chat app that, whereas meant to spice up happiness, would come with a blocklist targeted closely on silencing pro-union key phrases. In addition to forbidding the usage of the phrase “union,” it will additionally block phrases like “compensation,” “pay raise,” “ethics” and even “robots.”
Other bans would focus totally on protecting issues optimistic, similar to “rude” and “stupid.” Most, nonetheless, seem centered on working circumstances. Amazon supposedly selected the phrases at an upper-echelon assembly in November 2021, once they outlined an app that may encourage “Shout-Outs” and supply digital rewards for offering worth to the corporate.
The program linked to the app will reportedly launch in April. In a press release to The Intercept, nonetheless, Amazon spokeswoman Barbara Agrait mentioned the initiative “has not been approved yet” and is perhaps modified or scrapped.
If this system and its related app launch, they’d come at a tense second. Amazon warehouse staff in Staten Island simply voted to unionize, and people at a Bessemer, Alabama facility simply had a extremely contested rerun election the place either side accused one another of interference. While this app is not about to hinder union organizers (they weren’t doubtless to make use of Amazon-monitored chats), it may underscore the very labor issues the corporate would not need staff to say.
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