Newshot New Zealand's Largest Retailer The Warehouse Faces Employee Protests: Even Toilet Breaks Are Monitored by AI
IT之家 November 14 news — On the 13th local time, according to a report by the UK's The Independent, employees of New Zealand's largest retailer, The Warehouse Group, have accused the company of using AI to monitor toilet breaks, forcing some employees to relieve themselves in the aisles of distribution centers.
This week, more than 300 employees at The Warehouse Group's distribution centers in Auckland and Christchurch held protests, fearing that AI surveillance infringes on privacy and that the adoption of new technologies could lead to mass layoffs.
Employees believe the company values robots even more than its workers, and they also expressed concerns about their job prospects. IT之家 learned from the report that an employee who has worked at the distribution center for 23 years asked: "Do I look like a robot? Of course not. The reason we're here protesting is that these jobs should be done by people, not by robots."
Workers First union organizer Hayley Courtney stressed that employees are not opposed to introducing new technologies to improve efficiency; they only want the company to guarantee their future jobs.
She revealed that the company has introduced a "large robot" for picking orders, and some manual inventory-counting jobs have also been replaced by AI-equipped drones. "AI has even started monitoring how long employees spend in the toilet."
She also said that some employees have held in their need to use the toilet to avoid going, ultimately resulting in incontinence incidents. "We have found excrement on the floor. I put a firm stop to it later, and the situation improved, but there have indeed been cases of people becoming incontinent on the floor. We don't know who it was, and we don't know the specific circumstances. To be pushed to that point must be extremely humiliating, and similar situations have happened several times."
The Warehouse Group denied the allegations, saying it was shocked and outraged by the union's claim that employees had to relieve themselves anywhere in the workplace.
Group Chief People Officer Richard · 帕克 explained: "What we use is not AI at all as the union claims, but technology that monitors work efficiency through scanning devices, which distribution centers around the world have been using for decades. This has nothing to do with employees going to the toilet."
Parker also denied that inventory-counting drones have caused job losses, "In fact, we have added three temporary positions in this area. Drones not only improve the accuracy of inventory counts and enhance the customer experience, but also make distribution centers safer, because employees no longer have to operate mechanical equipment at heights every night. No employer can guarantee what future jobs will look like, but we will always consult with employees in accordance with our obligations and provide retraining and redeployment opportunities wherever possible."
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