The Age Of The Human Worker As A Machine Is Here Courtesy Of Tesco
Many can be forgiven in looking at the 1927 film by Fritz Lang, Metropolis, and forming the view that the basis of the film is coming true in 2013.
The film made in 1927 predicted a future were the rich are cocooned away from the workers, who are mostly poor and treated as non-human machines and fodder for profiteering from and are totally unworthy of existence.
Whilst most people would see this as an extreme view, most people are ignorant of the fact that the workers at the country’s most profitable supermarket, Tesco; are being viewed as simply that – fodder to be mechanised and thrown away when broken.
How may you ask are they doing this – simply by forcing them to wear computer-connected arm-bands that monitor and archive the worker’s every movement. Those who are not working fast enough are then subjected to disciplinary measures. Those working fast enough are then given greater targets to achieve – and so it goes…..
First hitting the headlines in a major newspaper, The Daily Telegraph six days ago, the news has travelled fast.
According to SumOfUs, a world-wide campaigning movement of people working together to hold corporations accountable for their actions:
“Tesco is forcing its warehouse workers and drivers to wear electronic armbands that can monitor how hard they’re working. People can be punished if they don’t meet strict targets.”
It provides evidence for this from a former Tesco worker who says the armbands are used to time every task. If an employee doesn’t work fast enough, they get a bad score and can be hauled in front of management. He says “The guys who made the scores were sweating buckets and throwing stuff around the place.”
SumOfUs says that:
“Tesco admits it is using electronic armbands on its warehouse workers and drivers but claims this is just to cut down on paperwork. But the real story is that these armbands are like Big Brother in the workplace, watching every move a person makes.
Imagine the stress and pressure these armbands create in the men and women forced to wear them in Tesco warehouses every day, worrying that if they slow down for even a few minutes, they will be reprimanded?”
The Daily Telegraph provides further information in its coverage of 14th February:
“The former employee has told the Irish Independent that staff are given marks based on how efficiently they work, and can be hauled in front of bosses if they take unscheduled toilet breaks.
In a bid to improve productivity the armbands are given to warehouse staff and forklift drivers who use them to scan the stock and send it out for delivery.
The chain say that they are a labour saving device, which means that the staff do now have to carry around pens and paper.”
But the article paints a more realistic and menacing use of these arm-bands:
“They [whistle blowers] explained the armband provided a set time in which to collect an order from a warehouse.
If workers met that target they were given a 100 per cent score, which would rise to 200 per cent if they worked twice as quickly.
The grade would fall if they did not meet the target, and if they do not register a toilet break their score would plummet, according to the worker who was employed in an Irish branch of the store.
If it was judged that they were not working hard enough people would be called before management, he alleged.
“The guys who made the scores were sweating buckets and throwing stuff around the place," he said. “
Many feel that Tesco isn’t known for doing business ethically or treating people well. And that with these armbands they have now crossed a line. SumOfUs warn that things will get “even uglier at the UK’s biggest private sector employer.”
Whilst the principles of this are quite clear, the implications for health of the employees concerned is even more obvious – an increase in stress, musculoskeletal disorders, spinal disorders, not to mention accidents, injuries and even a greater risk of deaths. Warehouse work is very physical, so is driving vans, delivering and unloading products to supermarkets and customers.
Furthermore, will other employers such as Royal Mail, BT and Virgin Media start to use such monitoring methods in addition to those they already employ? Will telecoms engineers be fitted with arm-band monitoring meters to check their climbing heights or digging depths on a daily basis as they fix and install telegraph poles and submerged cables? Will this result in targets for pole climbing and hole digging? Armbands fitted with GPS positioning maybe so employees can be monitored, not just their vehicles?
The use of so-called ‘new technology’ has rarely resulted in improved working conditions and terms of employment. Indeed, as the Tesco Electronic arm-band monitoring of employees shows, it has merely provided employers with a greater opportunity to see their employees as mere ‘units’ to be monitored and controlled by electronic means.
No doubt Fritz Lang would be astonished to see just how close to Metroplis we have come in 2013.
You can tell Tesco to treat people like people, not machines and to stop using electronic armbands to monitor their employees, here
Source: Daily Telegraph / SumOfUs
