Dark Clouds - To the Cloud: Big Data in a Turbulent World - page 169

have considerably greater power than their counterparts in the United
States and the United Kingdom. Mobilizing workers across the nation,
Ver.di's actions succeeded in ending Walmart's presence in the country.
The battle has now erupted over Amazon, which, in the view of German
workers, is attempting to impose “American-style management” by rely-
ing on ruthless labor practices such as hiring thousands of low-wage and
mainly foreign temporary workers and the security police necessary to
maintain control. This has enabled the company to cut prices and drive
out competition, including one German irm. According to a union leader,
Amazon applies rigid controls to its workforce: “Everything is measured,
everything is calculated, everything is geared toward eficiency. People
want to be treated with respect” (Ewing 2013). The company denies
these claims, arguing that it hires foreign temps because there are not
enough local workers. But the online giant faced embarrassment when it
had to ire a security irm hired to police one of its plants because some
of the irm's employees, decked out in outits associated with neo-Nazi
groups, roughed up people trying to ilm activity outside the plant. The
company maintains that it could not possibly vet the backgrounds of all
those it hires and insists that, while it refuses to negotiate with the union,
it does pay workers well.
What will happen in this key node of Amazon's global supply chain is
uncertain. Workers mount regular protests using mass mobilization, gue-
rilla theater, and online global petition drives (37,000 signatures received
by March 2013). But Amazon has refused to back down. In May 2013,
workers at the giant Amazon distribution center in Leipzig walked off
the job, marking the irst reported strike at an Amazon facility (Wilson
and Jopson 2013). As the story continues to unfold, there are important
implications to consider for labor in the cloud and for the cloud over labor.
While a great deal of its labor process can be automated and lodged in
the cloud, Amazon still requires a large workforce in the developed world
to eficiently locate and distribute its products. So in spite of the company's
high-tech image, Amazon workers at a typical warehouse walk between
seven and ifteen miles every day carrying handheld devices that direct
and monitor their every move to locate ordered goods in its warehouses
and package them individually. To maximize productivity, the company
regularly advises workers on more eficient ways to carry out their activi-
ties, making full use of the data in everything from individual personnel