GMB Union has demanded that Amazon disclose whether it is using Atlas — an AI tool that reportedly aggregates hundreds of data points to assess union-organising risk at individual warehouses — at its Coventry and Minworth sites, after the company's own internal documents identified both locations as at risk.
The call follows a report on Atlas's use in Canada, which described the tool as drawing on staff communications and external sources including Reddit posts to build a unionisation risk score for each site. Source documents cited in the report list Amazon's Coventry and Minworth warehouses, two sites that have been the focus of UK union-recognition campaigns, as classified "Risky" by the system.
Amazon has not confirmed whether Atlas operates in Britain. GMB has written to Liam Byrne MP, Chair of the Business and Trade Committee, asking the Government to seek answers from the company about its UK deployment.
Rachel Fagan, GMB Organiser, said: "This is a shocking revelation. Amazon, one of the globe's wealthiest corporations, could be deploying Orwellian AI-fuelled tools to monitor workers right here in the UK. We've long warned that Amazon top brass is uninterested in the norms and expectations of British industrial relations. Workers deserve to be able to work free of the fear of excessive surveillance."
Rosa Curling, co-executive director of Foxglove, the tech rights organisation, said: "It is shocking that Amazon think they can deploy a nakedly anti-union spy tech tool for the purpose of disrupting workers' legal rights to organise and form a union."
The timing is significant: new statutory rights for trade unions to access workplaces come into force in coming weeks, part of the Government's Employment Rights Bill. GMB's letter argues those rights are undermined if employers can use predictive AI to pre-empt and counter organising activity before it reaches the formal recognition threshold.
The union is asking Amazon whether Atlas or any equivalent system is in use at British sites and, if so, what data it collects about UK workers.
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