Amazon is a giant in online retail: now boasting 150 warehouses worldwide and last year, dominating 44 per cent of online retail, making 136 billion dollars.
At its head: Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world as of 2017, possessing a net worth of 157 billion dollars, according for Forbes.
How does Amazon and Bezos make so much money?
Amazon is a convenient, easy and sometimes cheaper way to purchase whatever you may need.
The vast amount of people that shop through Amazon, pair that with exploitation of its workers and you have a recipe for success!
The median pay for an Amazon employee is $28,446 a year, according to Seth Fiegerman, in his article The typical Amazon employee makes less than you think published on CNN.com.
To put that into perspective: in the US, this is barely above the poverty line for a family of four or less.
If the pay isn’t bad enough for you, look into the working conditions.
According to Inside an Amazon Warehouse: “treating human beings as robots” by Aimee Picchi on cbsnews.com “Workers received disciplinary points for various infractions – six points were grounds for firing. Calling in sick resulted in a point… A handheld device monitored workers’ time and movements, sending a message when they were behind or slowing down.” Workers also reported coworkers urinating in bottles because bathroom breaks are timed.
The article goes on to talk about Amazon warehouses revolving around the workers’ productivity rate, and not caring much about people’s well-being.
There is no shortage of articles that describe the conditions of working in Amazon warehouses.
All allegations of mistreatment are, of course, denied by Amazon.
Amazon doesn’t seem to have any plans on making the situation better, either.
Amazon has been quite prolific with their history of union busting, according to Exploited Amazon workers need a union. Will they get one? by Michael Sainato on theguardian.com.
In Sainto’s article, Amazon is described as being anti-union from the start.
“In 2000, after an arm of the Communication Workers of America attempted to organize customer service employees, Amazon responded by shutting down the call centre where they worked. (The company claimed, unpersuasively, that the firings weren’t related.) The same year, the New York Times reported that Amazon’s internal website for managers included instructions on detecting and busting unionizing efforts. In 2016, the Times exposed a manager at an Amazon warehouse in Delaware who made up an anti-union story to scare employees off organizing. According to the Times, several employees appeared to have been fired for advocating a union.”
Instead of allowing workers to have better conditions, Amazon has instead resorted to actively attempting to keep them oppressed.
And, bizarrely, paying people to tweet nice things about them to counter criticism, according to an article on businessinsider.com.
It seems Amazon will do anything to keep itself in business, except give its workers better conditions.
Unions are meant to protect workers from the kind of treatment that they endure with Amazon, and Bezos has a vested interest in continuing these practices.
Jeff Bezos is the richest man in the world for a reason, he and other billionaires like him owe it to their workers for where they ended up.
The very least Amazon could do for its workers is treat them with respect.