The Uneven Dynamics of Algorithmic Management: Amazon Warehouses in the GTA


Rawan Abdelbaki, York University

Following Burawoy’s argument that the wider ‘politics of production’ are what determine firms’ labour processes and regimes, this paper offers empirical and theoretical analyses of the ways in which Amazon’s deployment of digital Taylorism shapes micro-processes of class composition within its warehouses by situating Amazon within the broader racial segmentation and flexibilization of the Canadian labour market. Part of Amazon’s rise as a logistics giant is its mobilization of a ‘culture of meritocracy’ through a ‘culture of injury:’ upward mobility as a reward for hard work by requiring repetitive tasks and intensifying levels of mental and physical stress that are exacerbated by undisclosed performance goals (the need to ‘make rate’) dictated by algorithms. Finally, while accounting for the impact of digitality, I argue the use of these technologies in the workplace neither neutralizes nor transcends existing social relations. Thus, the use of algorithms and digital technologies to manage the labour process is a socially grounded phenomenon. Work performed under digital Taylorist regimes is constituted by racialized and gendered divisions of labour that inflect the uneven experiences of algorithmic management.

This paper will be presented at the following session: