How unusually timed.
Per documents obtained by The Intercept, it seems that the launching of Amazon’s worker chat app was somewhat agenda driven. According to those documents, words and phrases such as “union”, “restrooms”, “pay raise”, “compensation”, “ethics”, “robots”, “slave labor”, “plantation”, “grievance”, and “living wage” are blocked from use in the app.
Granted, there are other words and phrases not related to completely hypothetical working conditions that are blocked, such as “rude” and a number of variants of “stupid”. But it seems the majority are words that an unhappy employee might use to describe what they’re feeling. Supposedly, the blocked words were decided at an upper-echelon meeting in November 2021, which planned for an app that encouraged “Shout-Outs” and gave digital rewards for providing the company with good service.
The app is meant to launch in April; this month. That said, speaking to The Intercept, Amazon spokeswoman Barbara Agrait said that the app “has not been approved yet” and is still subject to change or potential cancellation.
That said, this all seems to be happening at a convenient, or rather inconvenient, time for the company. You know, given all the union related buzz happening with amazon workers in states such as New York and Alabama. One does have to wonder, though: why would any of their employees use an app where they’re so restricted? It’s hard to imagine them preferring this app over whatever solution they had been using.
Source: Engadget
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