New Zealand workers say their bathroom breaks are tracked by AI - The Independent

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Workers at New Zealand's largest retailer said they were forced to defecate in the distribution aisles due to their bathroom breaks being monitored by artificial intelligence.

More than 300 workers at The Warehouse Group's distribution centres in Auckland and Christchurch staged protests this week over fears of major redundancies and employee privacy due to AI surveillance.

The Workers First Union alleged that there have been instances of staff urinating and defecating in distribution aisles due to their breaks being tracked by AI.

These claims were rejected by the Warehouse Group, which argued that "this has never happened".

Workers told public broadcaster RNZ that they feel they're being treated second-best to robots and feared for their future.

"Do I look like a robot? No. I don't," said one worker who has been working at a distribution centre for 23 years. "We are here to protest about these things [because it should be a human doing] the job, not a robot job."

Union organiser Hayley Courtney said having managers follow people to the toilet and "telling them off for a fundamental right is absolutely ludicrous". Ms Courtney said she had been fighting the issue for eight months.

Ms Courtney said workers were not resisting technological advances to improve efficiency, but wanted assurances about their future.

She claimed the company was bringing in a "massive robot" for stock picking, while AI-powered drones have replaced some members of the physical inventory team.

"And AI is now tracking how long people spend on bathroom breaks," she told The Post.

She added that there have been accidents due to staff "trying to hold on" instead of going to the toilet.

“We’d been finding things on the floor. It did stop once I put my foot down, but there were accidents on the floor; we don’t know who it was or anything. Obviously, it’s very humiliating if you’re forced into that position, but there were multiple occasions where this occurred,” she told the newspaper.

The company denied the allegations and said they were "shocked and appalled by the union's claim that our team members are urinating and defecating on the floor at work".

Warehouse Group chief people officer, Richard Parker, told RNZ: "We use technology, which is not AI as claimed, that has been commonly used in distribution centres around the world for decades to monitor efficiency through scanning devices. It has nothing to do with bathroom use."

He claimed that no roles had been lost because of stocktaking drones. "In fact, we currently have three additional temp roles in this area.

"The drones improve stock accuracy and the customer experience, while making our distribution centres safer by removing the need for people to work at height in machinery every night," Mr Parker said.

"No employer can guarantee what roles will look like in the future, but we will always consult with our team and look to retrain and redeploy people wherever we can in line with our obligations."

The Independent has reached out to the Warehouse for comment.