Amazon allows workers to log into a system that monitors each worker's performance, and the data is used to set their obligatory work rates, such as the demanded number of products scanned per hour. As long as they do not do anything that can be registered in the system (like "scanning goods") the system records "time off task". That means even if they work -- doing something that is not registered -- this time is recorded as taking a break. Such periods are added up and calculated as illegitimate "extra breaks". If workers do not meet the rates (that is, they work "too slowly") or have too many "extra breaks," they get negative "feedback," and after several "feedbacks" they can get a warning and eventually be sacked.

Trying to reach the rates is stressful enough, but even worse are days when Amazon tries to set "records," like 1 million orders processed in one warehouse within 24 hours. Warehouses compete with each other, and Amazon uses those days to push workers to the limit, ordering obligatory overtime and cancelling breaks before midnight. If workers reach the desired "record," managers get a extra bonus and workers get T-shirts.

Before a strike in Germany in June 2015, the management the Poznań warehouse announced one hour of overtime during the upcoming strike day across the border. Workers in Poznań were already aware that Amazon tried to bypass and undermine strikes in Germany by shifting orders between warehouses (in this case to Poland). Growing local tensions in the Poznań warehouse and the prospect of being used as scabs led to vivid discussions among workers on how to resist. Eventually, during the night shift on June 24-25, 2015, a few dozen workers improvised a slowdown in one department, taking advantage of a bottleneck in the processing of orders and disturbing operations in other parts of the warehouse. They showed a collective will to resist, their solidarity with workers on strike in Germany, and a keen knowledge of the work process and how to disrupt it.

Workers from temporary agencies are in a more precarious situation. They are under pressure to work hard (should they want to "qualify" for permanent employment) and can be sacked easily. Some of them have been active in the union, and IP has tried to get them involved by addressing their specific situation, organizing rallies in front of agency offices, starting collective bargaining processes in the agencies, and including them in the strike ballot--but it remains difficult to bridge the gap created by the dual employment structure.