Читать книгу The Unintended Consequences of Technology - Chris Ategeka - Страница 35

At the risk of offending some of my readers, I would like to draw some parallels between the tech-state and a pimp. A pimp is a person who controls sex workers and arranges clients for them, taking part of their earnings in return. A pimp knows his workers well, but does not always treat them well. A pimp knows how many tricks each worker can turn each night.

A pimp knows how long each worker can work before they are burnt out, essentially treating people like cars, like objects. After all, there will be plenty of other workers in line for the job. Replace the word “pimp” with “tech-state” and “sex worker” with “employee,” and you'll perhaps agree that the analogy holds strong.

They may not say so explicitly, but most tech-state companies (although not all of them) treat their workers like throw-away commodities. At companies like Amazon, some workers stay on the clock continuously to the point that they have no bathroom breaks. The company recently admitted that workers sometimes “urinate in water bottles” (Pocan, 2021) while they are out and about delivering packages. The workers are numb to the mistreatment because they are grateful to have a job, which, as an Amazon warehouse worker noted, is essential in order to put food on the table (Matsakis, 2020).

Tech-state companies often use the loophole of utilizing “contractors” to avoid paying people full benefits. In 2018, Google's contract workers outnumbered direct employees for the first time in the company's 20-year history. In San Mateo and Santa Clara counties alone, where most tech-states have headquarters, there are an estimated 39,000 workers who are contracted to tech companies, according to one estimate by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (Sheng, 2018).

Repetitive stress injuries are an epidemic but are rarely reported. These include carpal tunnel syndrome or pain in the wrists, thumbs, hands, or forearms. Sometimes it's the overexertion injuries, which happen because heavy lifting on the job can cause neck and lower back pain. In 2015, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited a New Jersey Amazon warehouse for exposing workers to risk factors that included stress from continuous bending and repetitious exertions and prolonged standing during long shifts (Schibell & Mennie LLC, 2021).

These people are viewed as expendable. After all, tech-state knows that when one person leaves, there are plenty of people knocking at the door looking to do that same job.

As another example of tech-state companies keeping their workers down, Amazon has vehemently opposed its workers unionizing. Amazon's relentless push to beat back a union drive among warehouse workers mirrors the company's past efforts to oppose unions in Seattle, New York, Canada, and the United Kingdom (Greene, 2021). A unified voice could give workers power, which the company likely sees as a threat. Some companies have even been rumored to have gone as far as blacklisting and firing people who engaged in unionizing behavior that is deemed unacceptable.

Borrowing a page from the scare tactics used in the construction industry, in 2009 the union “Unite in the UK” took a case to the High Court after names were found in a file compiled by the Consulting Association, which was raided. More than 3,000 people were on the blacklist, often for being a union member or for raising safety issues (BBC News, 2009). This intimidation in construction or tech thwarts any internal attempts at organizing the workers within the company.

Tech-state companies may not always treat their workers well, but they do take good care of their users and shareholders. “Users” are the customers who pay for the product. “Customer is king,” they say. They know that without the customer they have no company. That's why they care. Shareholders are the investors and other entities who own a stake in the company. They care about shareholders, because without them they have no investment to grow the company. If only they applied this same thinking to their employees and to our planet, the world would be a better place. Because a dead planet is not a good place to run a business.