Ethics of Amazon

[El_Machinae]

It's an interesting thing to notice - a monopoly power doesn't need to be used against the consumer. It can be used against the employee. Amazon out-competed in order to become dominant, using everything from process innovation to actual AI R&D. And the reason why Amazon working conditions are so bad is because they're the best conditions those workers can achieve - the workers don't have enough bargaining power. Amazon is right on the cusp of 'higher wages will be replaced by robots', which is all of the AIU (automation-induce unemployment) is all about.

It is a problem with legislation - Amazon is doing things we want. Lower prices, convenience, replacing workers with robots, and even using profits to build rocket ships. So, it's creating all the good things that Libertopia promises, and it's lack of coherent government action that really is causing all the damages. Then we come back to my central thesis - if you're going to help Bezos with your dollars, it really matters what you do with the savings (or profits) from partnering up with his services.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

It's an interesting thing to notice - a monopoly power doesn't need to be used against the consumer. It can be used against the employee. Amazon out-competed in order to become dominant, using everything from process innovation to actual AI R&D. And the reason why Amazon working conditions are so bad is because they're the best conditions those workers can achieve - the workers don't have enough bargaining power

I like to argue that undermining social assistance/lack of UBI plays right into that. When your choice is to either work at a bad place or end up homeless the employers have the power and the billionaires successfully make the people being paid $25 an hour think that the other guys wanting $15 an hour are the real problem.

 

[Phrossack]

I'm not defending the delivery time at all There are potentially a lot of differences in how the shipping is sorted though (Ebay, for example, can depend on the seller. My wife sells things through Ebay, that means whoever buys is at the mercy of the UK postal service ), but eh, a rubbish wait is a rubbish wait.

I do think we value convenience too highly, and this helps the increasingly huge megacorps get away with what they get away with. At least from our perspective here in OT (for example). It's hard to change someone's mind if they prize convenience highly (which we all do, to some extent or another. It's why Amazon Prime works so well - it keeps badgering you with that free next-day delivery. You feel like you want that benefit, and once you're paying for Prime, you then have to justify it by buying from Amazon for that next-day delivery). Like I don't think much is going to hurt Amazon even if everyone in this thread, or even across the entire CivFanatics forum, stopped buying from Amazon. For me it's more about changing peoples' views on what may or may not be acceptable, that we tolerate for the sake of things like convenience.

Fully agreed. We absolutely do value convenience too highly.

Back in early August I placed an order for a book. Due to getting swamped with orders, they sold out and had to send for more copies to be printed. The ETA became November. Nearly two and a half months later and I'm still waiting with a month to go.

And you know what?

I'm fine with that.

I can wait. My life doesn't depend on this book. I don't get angry when I think of how long it's been and how long it will be. If anything, I'm completely at peace with it and feel good about being patient. Modern society has become so accustomed to speed and convenience that this expectation has become an addiction. Too many people consider wage slavery for others, and the growth of Amazon from a bookstore to a global superpower, as a small price to pay to get their dopamine fix right now.

This isn't to say that ordering from Amazon makes one corrupt - I know I've done it - but I just hate to see Amazon defended purely on the basis of speed and convenience. Amazon is too vast and all-powerful to be stopped by John and Jane Doe suddenly ordering from small competitors - by now it would take nuclear weapons or a meteor to stop them - but would it kill us to wait a little? It certainly hasn't killed me. Hell, I'd order non-essential items exclusively from unionized places that only delivered goods via sailing ship and horse-drawn wagon if they had what I needed and I could afford them.

Ultimately consumers are basically powerless in something of this scale. But I'm just saying: waiting a little really isn't a big deal.

 

[H4run]

There seem to be a solid demand of amazon/ebay like trading platform with a better service protocol/procedure and more humane treatment to the worker and partner.

Actually for the first time I gotta say Indonesian online shopping platform like Tokopedia, do a good job on both of that. The seller/partner would be punish (sometime too severely) if the delivery is not processed within 2 days, and there is a real unforgiving impact on the store credibility for late-respond; it charged the established huge company (like logitech for instance) with additional fee and larger cut per transaction, while the smaller nuclear trading organization/community like me can create an account without any free of charge and he amount of percentage they took for each transaction is so little that it is barely noticeable. Tokopedia solely focusing on making a platform and earning revenue from selling ads to her partners and they stay away from using their own platform and become a competitor of their partner (which is greedy and stupid).

Why don't someone make a platform that focus on accommodating third party, as there will be many escapees that flog away from amazon. Small and independent seller often sold unique products, and the variety and creativity that can possibly coming out from them is unimaginable.

 

[Lexicus]

I do think we value convenience too highly,

We absolutely do value convenience too highly.

All due respect, this is too abstract. The problem isn't that we value convenience too highly, the problem is we have an economy which is constructed to place unacceptable burdens on large segments of service workers for the convenience of the people with the disposable income to afford the services. Basically, it comes back once again to inequality: we value the convenience of people with money more than the human rights of the workers directly or indirectly providing the conveniences.

And the solution is quite obvious: the workers themselves need to organize, and to withhold their labor until those who purchase it are willing to offer a better deal. The covid-19 pandemic has already brought into sharp relief the disconnect between how "valued" and "important" service sector workers are and how much they're actually paid. It will become even more obvious if they start going on strike and the cops have to show up to force them back to work.

And I should specify, I don't mean all service workers here, because many service workers are actually the "winners" of the current unequal economy. Highly educated people who provide sophisticated services to the rich - financial services like asset management, legal services like tax avoision (wow, thought this was a Simpsons joke but TIL it's an actual word), specialized services like running a yacht. Those types of service workers are doing fine. It's the "menial" service workers I'm talking about - the army of delivery drivers, low-wage restaurant workers preparing food, the whole galaxy of drivers working for the various companies that contract with Amazon and other retailers to provide home delivery, the workers in the warehouses who keep everything organized as it comes in (mostly from other countries) so it can go out to people's homes when they want it. The Uber drivers who might hover around for an hour so that you can summon their car to your location in a matter of minutes.

The root problem here isn't convenience for the customer, it's the inequality in the relationship between the customer and the worker. Workers shouldn't be in the position of having to abase themselves for the paycheck, they shouldn't have to accept being treated as less than human because the customer is always right. This ties back into what @aimeeandbeatles was saying about a lack of basic income - and it's not only a lack of basic income, it's a whole slew of policies which are explicitly designed to make it difficult for people to survive without a paycheck. The more people are dependent on the paycheck, the more they will accept being treated as less than human. Which has all the terrible implications you'd think for a society that thinks of itself as a democracy where people are formal equals.

 

[Zardnaar]

Grandparents.

Ordering stuff might take 6 months to arrive. 3 months by boat to England for the order, 3 months back.

It's inconvenient to mate more than a day or two ffs.

It's a race to the bottom and Amazon is the prime example of it.

By using Amazon you are directly contributing to hurting others. Some people defending them make a big deal about the more social causes but the erosion of labour and workers rights/wages are the biggest problem imho. Everything else stems from that basic problem.

 

[Quintillus]

I've been actively avoiding purchasing any physical goods from Amazon over the past year or two. I was never an "order everything from Amazon" person, but I used to order things a few times a year. But as I read more about Amazon, I became increasingly convinced that Amazon is one of the prime examples of a company's policies being bad for society. Specifically, their treatment of their employees, and their hostility to collective bargaining (which is of course because they want to continue their employee-hostile practices).

I have monopoly concerns about Amazon as well, although U.S. anti-trust law is its own topic. In short, I believe that over the past few decades, U.S. anti-trust regulators have been too focused on the immediate impact of a company's actions on market prices, and have essentially said, "if prices are going to stay about the same for the next 5 years, you can do whatever you want." This ignores effects on the competitive landscape (which is important for long-term economic growth), as well as on the ability of workers to bargain due to having some degree of leverage in choosing among employers. But this is secondary to the worker-treatment issue.

If the only issue were online versus brick and mortar, I wouldn't find it that bothersome; to me that is more of a market preference. Brick and mortar shouldn't inherently be chosen simply because it was long the default; you could have argued the same thing 100 years ago if someone were concerned about Sears putting brick and mortar stores out of business with their catalog ordering.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

This appeared on CBC:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/marketplace-amazon-returns-1.5753714

To further investigate where all those online returns end up, Marketplace purchased a dozen products off Amazon's website — a faux leather backpack, overalls, a printer, coffee maker, a small tent, children's toys and a few other household items — and sent each back to Amazon just as they were received but with a GPS tracker hidden inside.

Marketplace teamed up with the Basel Action Network, a non-profit Seattle-based environmental organization that specializes in tracking waste and harmful products around the world. The trackers became a guide into the secretive world of e-commerce returns.

Many returns took a circuitous route, often covering several hundreds — sometimes even thousands — of kilometres to reach their final destination. Marketplace returned toy blocks that travelled over 950 kilometres before reaching a new customer in Quebec. And a printer clocked over 1,000 kilometres while circling around southern Ontario.

Of the 12 items returned, it appears only four were resold by Amazon to new customers at the time this story was published. Months on from the investigation, some returns were still in Amazon warehouses or in transit, while a few travelled to some unexpected destinations, including a backpack that Amazon sent to landfill.

The backpack that Marketplace returned in brand-new condition — but with a tracker inside — can be traced directly from the Amazon warehouse in Mississauga, Ont., to a waste management facility in Toronto.

 

[Lexicus]

https://www.itfglobal.org/en/reports-publications/xpo-delivering-injustice

This report brings together the voices of workers from across XPO’s global network. Together, their stories paint the picture of a toxic corporate culture where wage theft, exploitation, gender and pregnancy discrimination, sexual harassment and dangerous working environments are rife.

A new report from a group of unions exposes working conditions at a logistics company serving Amazon, Wal-Mart, Starbucks, Peloton, and other big name brands.

 

[thecrazyscot]

We use Amazon quite a bit due to price and convenience. I freely admit that it would be better to find as many things as possible elsewhere, but Amazon has grown so large that it was (at least) one really insidious thing going for them: it takes effort to find alternatives to Amazon when Amazon provides everything in one place. And extra effort is really one thing I do not want to have to expend when I'm already exhausted by everything else in my life.

We're trying to diversify a few things: we get essentially all of our baby supplies from Target (which has multiple local brick and mortar locations), now, instead of Amazon. We get 99% of our groceries from Aldi. I've started buying some of my primary hobby items from smaller online stores. We piggyback off of my in-laws Costco membership occasionally for some bulk goods.

But you know what's painfully missing? Our day-to-day purchases don't come from any small businesses. 99% of what we buy comes from large corporations. Some of those corporations treat their employees relatively well (Costco pays well for retail and has high employee satisfaction, for example; and Aldi pays more than competitors, but works their employees really hard), but know little about their supply chains and my dollars are mostly funneled away from my community.

----------------------------------------

One thing that makes Amazon glaringly different from its competitors is that it is not just an online retailer, and it is not just a tech company, and it is not just a grocer, and it is not just a logistics company, and so on and so on...

Amazon takes a loss on a lot of things to price competitors out (@MaryKB this cannot be argued with in good faith as it is well documented). And it can do that because it funds those losses with profits from another business arena totally unrelated to the one it's muscling in on. AWS allows Amazon virtually unlimited financial power to attempt domination in any market it wants. Amazon will simply continue to grow in scope and power until it's forced to break up its different interests into separate businesses.

 

[Samson]

Amazon workers plan Black Friday strikes and protests in 15 countries

Amazon warehouse workers in several countries are planning to carry out strikes and protests on Black Friday, one of the biggest sales events of the year for the company. Among other things, they'll call on Amazon to improve pay and safety conditions, and respect their right to organize. Social and environmental justice activists plan to join the workers in their actions, as Vice reports.
Similar actions have taken place during Black Friday and other key Amazon sales events over the last several years. Workers in Germany have staged several other strikes throughout 2020 — one in the summer over COVID-19 infections and another on Prime Day in October to protest pay and working conditions.
This time around, protests, strikes and other actions will take place in the US, the UK, Mexico, Brazil, India, Australia and nine other nations. The coordinated effort is called #MakeAmazonPay and it coincides with the start of the company's peak season. During that time, as Vice notes, the number of warehouse worker injuries typically rises amid a significant increase in workload.
Among those who plan to take action on Black Friday are up to 3,000 warehouse workers in Germany, Ring call center contractors in the Philippines and garment manufacturers in Bangladesh. Activists also plan to hold protests at Amazon's headquarters in Seattle and Virginia.
A collective of social justice organizations have called on Amazon to improve pay for warehouse workers, including a return of pandemic-related hazard pay and higher rates during peak periods. Among the group’s many other demands are for the company to commit to eliminating net carbon emissions by 2030 (Amazon is targeting 2040 for that), stop spying on workers and union organizers, pay “taxes in full, in the countries where the real economic activity takes place” and guarantee transparency over privacy and use of customer data.
“This is a series of misleading assertions by misinformed or self-interested groups who are using Amazon’s profile to further their individual causes,” Amazon told Engadget in a statement. “Amazon has a strong track record of supporting our people, our customers, and our communities, including providing safe working conditions and leading $15 minimum wage and great benefits, leading on climate change with the Climate Pledge commitment to be net zero carbon by 2040, and paying more than $5 billion in taxes globally.”

I guess that is today? Is it happening?
[EDIT]
Amazon worker on TV calling for people to boycott amazon.

 

[Samson]

Amazon intensifies 'severe' effort to discourage first-ever US warehouse union

A push to unionize workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama is running into tough opposition as the retail giant, whose profits have boomed during the coronavirus pandemic despite concerns over worker safety, has launched an aggressive anti-union drive.
​

The worst thing they are doing is to try and restrict postal voting:

Lawyers for Amazon are currently trying to appeal the decision to allow the election to be carried out by mail, and have requested the election be delayed until their appeal is reviewed.
​

And it sounds like the union will have plenty to do

Brewer explained some of the reasons workers have cited as wanting to form a union, with the primary one being the lack of communication between workers and managers within the warehouse as disciplinary measures are often carried out by an app, making it difficult for workers to appeal write-ups, terminations or address grievances in the workplace.

During the first few months of the pandemic, when the warehouse in Alabama opened, Amazon workers were allowed to keep their cell phones on them during work hours in case of emergency, but when that policy was revoked and implemented with a zero tolerance policy, it was only communicated on employees’ screens.
The same issue occurred when Amazon’s unlimited unpaid time-off policy ended during the pandemic in July, explained Massey, which was enacted abruptly in the new warehouse, leaving workers who went in the negative subject to termination.

She noted her and other managers spoke up about the lack of communication and against the policies, but were ignored. As staffing became an issue, she added safety protections were shoved aside.

The lines were also designed in a way where six feet of social distancing was impossible for workers to practice while working, but Amazon still used a team called “Space Force” to enforce social distancing during lunches, clock-ins and clock-outs, writing up workers who did not follow protocols even though there wasn’t enough space for them to do so.
“They started giving associates final warning for breaking social distancing, meaning that if associates were seen within six feet of each other, they were given that final pink slip. But that was so unfair to the associates, because there weren’t even enough seats in the lunchroom,” Massey added.​

 

[Bamspeedy]

Brewer explained some of the reasons workers have cited as wanting to form a union, with the primary one being the lack of communication between workers and managers within the warehouse as disciplinary measures are often carried out by an app, making it difficult for workers to appeal write-ups, terminations or address grievances in the workplace.

At my workplace (Amazon competitor) there probably is an app to see your 'tracking log' of disciplinary record, but you still sign a paper acknowledging the event. Refusing to sign it doesn't mean it won't go on your record (otherwise people would always simply refuse to sign), but there are options if you want to dispute it (and not using an app).

During the first few months of the pandemic, when the warehouse in Alabama opened, Amazon workers were allowed to keep their cell phones on them during work hours in case of emergency, but when that policy was revoked and implemented with a zero tolerance policy, it was only communicated on employees’ screens.

My work has never allowed cell phones in the work area. Only allowed in the break room/locker area. If Amazon is not allowing them in the facility at all (kept in their cars), this is ridiculous.

The same issue occurred when Amazon’s unlimited unpaid time-off policy ended during the pandemic in July, explained Massey, which was enacted abruptly in the new warehouse, leaving workers who went in the negative subject to termination.

We had this 'unlimited' time off too, at the start. Didn't need a positive case or symptoms either, just "I don't feel safe coming to work" (whether or not one was 'high risk'). Then staffing became a problem, and especially after it became apparent this was not a 'couple months' thing, but year+ long thing the policy needed to change. If Amazon didn't communicate the change to workers who were out, this is definitely a problem.

The lines were also designed in a way where six feet of social distancing was impossible for workers to practice while working, but Amazon still used a team called “Space Force” to enforce social distancing during lunches, clock-ins and clock-outs, writing up workers who did not follow protocols even though there wasn’t enough space for them to do so.

Reminders by management to social distance and wear masks, but I haven't heard of any write-ups or terminations. If one got belligerent and offensive about it (like seen in viral videos) I could see someone being terminated. We have dots by time clocks to keep social distancing, but it's largely ignored. There are 8 time clocks to get the 40+ people clocked in quickly, but the time clocks are all spaced about 6 inches from each other.

But that was so unfair to the associates, because there weren’t even enough seats in the lunchroom,” Massey added.

Most break rooms can't possibly be built for social distancing the large numbers it was able to hold before social distancing. You either need staggered breaks (which won't always work on some assembly lines where the whole line runs at the same time), or in our case we had a large open area of the warehouse next to the break room that we use for stretching and meetings that now have lunch room tables. It is advised one person per table, many don't follow it. There is probably enough tables inside for 1/table, but definitely not enough tables for the smokers outside.

 

[Samson]

My work has never allowed cell phones in the work area. Only allowed in the break room/locker area. If Amazon is not allowing them in the facility at all (kept in their cars), this is ridiculous.

Do you not have those cell phone contact tracing apps? They are recommended by the government here, I would imagine if a company was banning them they would have massive public outcry.

And the big question, are you in a union? Would you if there was one at your workplace?

 

[Bamspeedy]

Do you not have those cell phone contact tracing apps? They are recommended by the government here, I would imagine if a company was banning them they would have massive public outcry.

And the big question, are you in a union? Would you if there was one at your workplace?

I do not have one of those apps, my work has not banned those apps. At my work we are not stationary on an assembly line, but most are mobile, moving throughout the warehouse continuously. So unless you stop to talk to someone, the breakroom would be the only place you spend more than a few seconds near someone.

When I started working there we were told cell phones can interfere with the wireless communications because there is a ton of work processes that use it (literally every action of moving a pallet and picking up a case), much like why they tell you to turn off cell phones in an airplane during landing/takeoff. That was 20 years ago, so maybe technology wasn't as good then as it is now so maybe it's not needed anymore, I don't know.

There is also the issue of people being on their phones while they are supposed to be working. Any company would view this as 'stealing', the difference is how much they want to enforce this. I know this is different from most typical cushy office jobs where surfing the net while 'working' is common practice, common enough 'filters' need to be installed and IT guys checking on computer use. Not allowing phones 'on the floor' solves any disputes whether the phone usage was legitimate or not. In an emergency one would contact the workplace and the worker would get paged.

I've seen one worker with a phone on the floor, and he's lucky he didn't get caught. Well, I never saw the phone, but several times I'd see him standing still on his equipment staring into his lap for a few minutes chuckling. I suspect behind the used shrink wrap bundles he built around himself he was holding a cell phone and watching viral videos.

I am not in a union, two unions I worked at 20-25 years ago I don't recall them allowing phones 'on the floor' either, and they were 'old school' factories where most stuff was done on paper.

 

[Samson]

Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020 but paid no corporation tax

Despite lockdown surge the firm’s Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid zero corporation tax

Fresh questions have been raised over Amazon’s tax planning after its latest corporate filings in Luxembourg revealed that the company collected record sales income of €44bn (£38bn) in Europe last year but did not have to pay any corporation tax to the Grand Duchy.
Accounts for Amazon EU Sarl, through which it sells products to hundreds of millions of households in the UK and across Europe, show that despite collecting record income, the Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid no tax.
In fact the unit was granted €56m in tax credits it can use to offset any future tax bills should it turn a profit. The company has €2.7bn worth of carried forward losses stored up, which can be used against any tax payable on future profits.
The Luxembourg unit – which handles sales for the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden – employs just 5,262 staff meaning that the income per employee amounts to €8.4m.

Amazon’s US accounts show that its UK income soared by 51% last year to a record $26.5bn (£19.4bn) as people at home during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns turned to it for online shopping as high street stores remained closed for most of the year, while homeworking drove increased use of its cloud software, Amazon Web Services.
While Amazon celebrated the rise in revenue collected from UK customers, it did not state how much corporation tax it paid in the UK in total last year. The company, which has made its founder and outgoing chief executive Jeff Bezos a $200bn fortune, paid just £293m in tax in 2019 despite the company collecting UK sales of $17.5bn that year.​

 

[Birdjaguar]

Amazon had sales income of €44bn in Europe in 2020 but paid no corporation tax

Despite lockdown surge the firm’s Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid zero corporation tax

Fresh questions have been raised over Amazon’s tax planning after its latest corporate filings in Luxembourg revealed that the company collected record sales income of €44bn (£38bn) in Europe last year but did not have to pay any corporation tax to the Grand Duchy.
Accounts for Amazon EU Sarl, through which it sells products to hundreds of millions of households in the UK and across Europe, show that despite collecting record income, the Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid no tax.
In fact the unit was granted €56m in tax credits it can use to offset any future tax bills should it turn a profit. The company has €2.7bn worth of carried forward losses stored up, which can be used against any tax payable on future profits.
The Luxembourg unit – which handles sales for the UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden – employs just 5,262 staff meaning that the income per employee amounts to €8.4m.

Amazon’s US accounts show that its UK income soared by 51% last year to a record $26.5bn (£19.4bn) as people at home during the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns turned to it for online shopping as high street stores remained closed for most of the year, while homeworking drove increased use of its cloud software, Amazon Web Services.
While Amazon celebrated the rise in revenue collected from UK customers, it did not state how much corporation tax it paid in the UK in total last year. The company, which has made its founder and outgoing chief executive Jeff Bezos a $200bn fortune, paid just £293m in tax in 2019 despite the company collecting UK sales of $17.5bn that year.​

~$17 billion in UK sales
~$300 million in taxes paid

That is a low rate. Way too low. I wonder what their UK payroll total was?

 

[Samson]

~$17 billion in UK sales
~$300 million in taxes paid

That is a low rate. Way too low. I wonder what their UK payroll total was?

The thing is we really do not know. They subcontract out the deliveries, the drivers are "self employed" and we have no idea how many people this is. The beeb has an item on them, and they guessed it was "thousands, perhaps 10's of thousands".

 

[Birdjaguar]

The thing is we really do not know. They subcontract out the deliveries, the drivers are "self employed" and we have no idea how many people this is. The beeb has an item on them, and they guessed it was "thousands, perhaps 10's of thousands".

Somewhere there is a line expense for contractors. It may just be buried with other things.

 

[Spidernova]

I'm an Amazon driver (so I'm not exactly an amazon employee), and a lot of the problem regarding bathroom breaks is rural routes. If you get sent out to the middle of nowhere, there isn't always going to be a public restroom within 15 minutes of drivetime. And when you add in that you are supposed to clock out before driving to your lunch location, a lot of people just don't get a bathroom break on a shift.