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Is Amazon the US’s Most Anti-Worker Company?

The Associated Press revealed this month that Amazon — owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos — forced Seattle to repeal a newly enacted tax on corporations designed to help the city’s homeless population. To make matters worse, the widely respected monitoring organization China Labor Watch also blasted the company recently for horrendous working conditions in its supplier factories building Kindles and Echo speakers.

June 23, 2018 | Source: Truthout | by John Logan

The Associated Press revealed this month that Amazon — owned by the world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos — forced Seattle to repeal a newly enacted tax on corporations designed to help the city’s homeless population. To make matters worse, the widely respected monitoring organization China Labor Watch also blasted the company recently for horrendous working conditions in its supplier factories building Kindles and Echo speakers.

These revelations, however, are not an aberration when it comes to Amazon — especially on the issue of labor conditions.

Recent reports that the median pay for Amazon employees is only $28,446 a year demonstrate beyond any doubt that the company is more of a low-wage retailer than a high-wage tech disruptor. These disclosures on poverty pay, including shocking details about huge numbers of Amazon workers who depend on food stamps to survive, add to existing revelations about the company’s brutal and often dangerous working environment and culture.

Although it faces intense competition from other large multinational corporations like Walmart and Home Depot, there seems little doubt that the e-commerce giant deserves the dubious distinction of being labelled the US’s most anti-worker company.