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  3. The Quantified Worker
  • Cited by 28
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
April 2023
Print publication year:
2023
Online ISBN:
9781316888681
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781316888681
Subjects:
Employment Law, Law, Organisation Studies, Management
Information

Book description

The information revolution has ushered in a data-driven reorganization of the workplace. Big data and AI are used to surveil workers and shift risk. Workplace wellness programs appraise our health. Personality job tests calibrate our mental state. The monitoring of social media and surveillance of the workplace measure our social behavior. With rich historical sources and contemporary examples, The Quantified Worker explores how the workforce science of today goes far beyond increasing efficiency and threatens to erase individual personhood. With exhaustive detail, Ifeoma Ajunwa shows how different forms of worker quantification are enabled, facilitated, and driven by technological advances. Timely and eye-opening, The Quantified Worker advocates for changes in the law that will mitigate the ill effects of the modern workplace.

Awards

Winner, 2023 Choice Awards

Reviews

‘Work is a meaningful part of our lives, in time and in quality. Yet, as Ifeoma Ajunwa’s new book masterfully shows, our work lives are under almost totalizing surveillance, for the benefit of employers. With clarity and care, Dr. Ajunwa shows us the extent to which employers have insinuated into every second of our days. Her book teaches us what we risk in the face of worker quantification and offers a bold and morally rich plan for tackling it, for the good of all of us.’

Danielle Keats Citron - 2019 MacArthur Fellow, author of The Fight for Privacy

‘Scientific management is not new, but as Dr. Ajunwa eloquently and definitively argues, the technologically-mediated quantification of the American worker poses novel and consequential challenges for labor, equity, and democracy itself. The Quantified Worker is a meticulous and passionate call to action, an urgent plea for a robust response from our legal system.’

Virginia Eubanks - author of Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor

‘Ajunwa's treatment of worker's rights - and lack thereof - in the context of corporate surveillance is critical, timely, and profound. It will be an invaluable resource to lawyers trying to understand the comprehensive reach of workplace monitoring and measuring, to data scientists trying to understand the relevant law in their fields, and to anyone else who wants to interrogate the AI marketing hype.’

Cathy O’Neil - author of Weapons of Math Destruction

‘The surveillance and quantification of workers is a critical issue of our time. This much-needed book details how these technologies erode labor rights and encode discrimination, and it’s powerful evidence for why we need worker coalitions and strong legal protections.’

Kate Crawford - USC Annenberg, author of Atlas of AI

‘… this well-researched volume covers everything from hiring algorithms to workplace wellness and wearable technologies, deftly building on the historical context of Taylorism and scientific management, which led to worker quantification … Highly recommended.’

W. Kramer Source: Choice

‘[This book] offers an eye-opening account of the amplification of managerial power. Through a highly engaging writing style, Ajunwa broadens the overall understanding of the subject and captivates readers’ interest with illustrations, ancient documents and legal sources. Well situated in the present, the book focuses on the structural, hard-core limitations of current legislation and makes concrete proposals for countering the drift towards workers’ commodification.'

Antonio Aloisi Source: International Labour Review

‘Ifeoma Ajunwa’s practical solution would reduce intrusive, automated surveillance of employees, minimize (if not eliminate) discrimination and bias, re-establish boundaries between work and home, and restore the humanity of workers too long dehumanized by obsessive and excessive quantification.’

Donald R. Riccomini Source: Technical Communication

‘An insightful, well-documented and maybe a little pessimistic, but surely eye-opening overview of the significant challenges currently faced by the labour force in the wake of the emerging AI revolution.’

Marco Biasi Source: European Journal of Social Security

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