> According to a report by Bloomberg, Flex drivers, who are Amazon contract workers and not granted the protections reserved for full-time employees, are being

> According to a report by Bloomberg, Flex drivers, who are Amazon contract workers and not granted the protections reserved for full-time employees, are being hired and fired via an app. A software program monitors each worker to determine whether they are working quickly enough, whether they are driving safely enough, and whether they are efficiently meeting their delivery quotas. That this program is rife with errors and punishes workers for things that are not their fault, from traffic problems to incorrect delivery directions, does not seem to concern Amazon. Workers have often complained about the unfair monitoring and lack of human oversight, but Amazon has maintained its system. Three reactions: 1. The Bloomberg piece[1] interviews one of the drivers (63-year old Army vet), who had this to say: > “I’m an old-school kind of guy, and I give every job 110%,” he said. “This really upset me because we're talking about my reputation. They say I didn’t do the job when I know damn well I did.” I'm not sure we're ready for the kind of society that results when the Amazon way is universally adopted. 2. There's a fascinating and chilling exploration of how far something like Amazon's policy can go in the audio series The Program: https://www.programaudioseries.com https://www.programaudioseries.com 3. Marshall Brain was right[2]. Automation doesn't spell the end of the low-level worker. It spells the end of the middle manager. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-28/fired-by-bot-amazon-turns-to-machine-managers-and-workers-are-losing-out https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-06-28/fired-by-... [2] https://marshallbrain.com/manna1 https://marshallbrain.com/manna1