Saturday, May 27, 2017

AMAZON STRIKE! END OF JEFF BEZOS' EXPLOITATION OF WORKERS?

SHOULD SHIT BILLIONAIRE JEFF BEZOS PAY WORKERS A LIVING WAGE?
BUT IF HE DID, HOW MANY BILLIONS WOULD HE MAKE THEN?
"Another Amazon worker added, “If something unexpected comes up, an illness or something needing repaired, then that’s it for you. The wages suffice to barely survive, if even for that, and even then it is difficult."

Striking Amazon workers in Germany support call for international cooperation
By our correspondents
27 May 2017
Workers at Amazon distribution centers in Bad Hersfeld went on strike yesterday. Workers have been resisting ruthless exploitation and low wages at the online sales giant for years.
Around 1,000 workers in Bad Hersfeld work at FRA1, the oldest distribution center in Germany, and an additional 2,000-2,200 work at FRA3, which is located on the so-called Amazon Road. Around 100 striking workers gathered at the entrance in the early morning, and 40 departed by bus to Frankfurt to participate in a day of action by retail workers in the state of Hesse, organized by the Verdi trade union.
Amazon is known for its brutal 
methods of exploitation and workflow, 
which is organized down to the last 
detail. It is also notorious for the harsh 
treatment of anyone who complains. 
Many striking workers therefore did 
not want to speak on camera about 
their working conditions. “I am on the 
verge of being fired,” was a common 
refrain.
Thomas, is a “picker,” the name given by Amazon to workers who locate ordered goods in the huge storerooms. He said that he walks between 20 and 30 kilometers each day. “When I take goods from the lower shelf, I have to bend my knees, often go down on my knees,” he said. Even being in good physical fitness cannot assist in such a situation.
Andrea has worked for Amazon for nine years and earns about €2,000 per month before tax, “and that is only because I have been employed here longer than 24 months,” she said. New hires earn much less. “That is €24,000 per year!” said Andrea. By comparison, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos “is the second richest man in the world. He ‘earns’ $24,000 within a minute,” she said.
Andrea recalled how company management had previously said that there was no money for higher wages because the company would make a loss. “But what about now?” she asked. Profits are exploding today. “We do not participate in the profits,” she added.
Andrea also explained how Amazon “justified” the low wages. “Amazon hires us all as trainees. Yet many of us are trained professionals.” She had trained as a retail saleswoman, with a focus on storage and logistics. “But that is not required. So you run around here as a trainee for years.”

The massive pressure on workers was clear to see on Friday morning. It was barely possible for workers who were not striking to speak as they went to work. However, almost all took the WSWS flyer introducing the International Amazon Workers Voice. Some were reluctant at first, but took it after campaigners informed them that it was not associated with Verdi, which is known for organizing a series of one-day strikes that have no impact on company operations.
Carl was formerly a US soldier and stationed in Germany until 1992. He began to work at Amazon in 1999 when it opened its first storage and distribution center in Bad Hersfeld. Prior to that, he worked as a gardener and landscaper, and he also worked in arms manufacturing and security.
Since his health had been ruined by the decades of labor, Carl spoke out vehemently against the “health bonus” introduced by Amazon management at several German stores. Bad Hersfeld has not yet introduced this system. According to this system, part of the bonus payment is linked to the absentee rate of an entire department. If one worker is absent due to illness, all workers lose out.
The obvious goal of this measure is to encourage workers to check on their colleagues and put them under pressure. “I have to go to the hospital twice a year, sometimes for a long period,” Carl said. “Should the entire department lose out because of that?”
Dave, who has worked in the returns department since 2011, said that he is also opposed to the system. It is merely a “scheme to get workers to turn up to work,” he said. Workers drag themselves to work when they are ill, for example when they have a cold, and infect more workers. “It just makes the whole thing worse,” he said. He hoped that the works council would manage to block the “health bonus” in Bad Hersfeld.
Jens explained the perfidious system to us on the sidelines of the demonstration in Frankfurt. A trained retail salesman, Jens has worked for Amazon for seven years. The group bonus is designed to work so that “if five people are selected from the department, and one of them is ill, then the entire department gets no bonus, everyone suffers as a result. This is not only a lottery, but also makes a fool of the workers.”
Jens said he knew one worker who forced herself to come to work even though she was ill. “She had a breakdown at Amazon and later died. That shows exactly where this type of thing leads.”
Another Amazon worker added, “If something 
unexpected comes up, an illness or something 
needing repaired, then that’s it for you. The wages 
suffice to barely survive, if even for that, and even 
then it is difficult.”
Many workers from different retail and online companies took part in the demonstration at Frankfurt. They were very interested to learn of conditions at Amazon, and almost all took the flyer introducing the International Amazon Workers Voice. Many spoke about similar working conditions.
Raffaela, who works on the check-outs at Karstadt, has had experiences with several retail companies: “I think Amazon is terrible. But even at Real it can happen that a note is taken if someone doesn’t work fast enough. Then he is at risk of being taken into the office and cited.”
Elke K. works at Real in Wiesbaden. After being informed about the Amazon flyer, she said that international cooperation against such a company was extremely important. “These conditions are really unsustainable, it reminds me of Bangladesh,” she said. “What amount of pressure must it be when people have to walk 20 kilometres per day.” Elke explained how she knew many colleagues who still had to go to the welfare office, despite working full-time and overtime hours, to top up their income and pay rent. “What a perfidious system!”
Marco, a Karstadt salesman, was horrified to learn that workers in Scotland lived in tents because they could not afford the travel to their work or a nearby apartment. “Hard to believe that something like that is possible in a modern industrial state.”
Gabriele added, “The suggestion to cooperate internationally is interesting. Companies have long since acted internationally and outsource operations to the Czech Republic or Poland and play us off against each other. And the trade unions offer only recipes within the national framework.”
Meanwhile in Bad Hersfeld, Amazon workers at the midday shift change spoke to the WSWS. They have to deal with the fact that many colleagues are not participating in a strike called by Verdi. One reason for this is that there is no grounds for workers to believe that Verdi will represent and fight for their interests. Verdi has been organizing one-day, isolated strikes against Amazon for years.
The trade union is pursuing entirely different goals to the workers. The Verdi trade union is calling for an additional €1 per hour for workers in the retail and online sales sector. But at Amazon, the issue remains one of securing any kind of collective agreement. The world’s largest online sales company has refused to recognize any contract.
With its demand for a collective agreement, Verdi hopes to be recognized by Amazon and cooperate with the company as a partner. This ultimately amounts to jointly organizing the exploitation of workers. Verdi already sits on the supervisory boards of many companies, including Lufthansa, Karstadt and the rail company Deutsche Bahn.
Workers said they could only fight the company by being organized as an international force. Carl said, “We can all secure more if we are all united. Not only in a state or federally, but on an international level.” This is why the Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei and its sister parties internationally have established the International Amazon Workers Voice. This newsletter will be international, both in its form and political content. It will link the struggles of workers around the world in a common struggle against the company and the capitalist system.

Ex-worker: I was close to heatstroke and Amazon forced me to keep working

By our reporters 

29 May 2017

Hundreds of Amazon workers have signed up for the International Amazon Workers Voice newsletter in recent days. Workers continue to send in their horror stories of exploitation, and workers in fulfillment centers in North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Africa are discussing the need for an international strategy to fight back.
Here is what workers are saying:

Amazon to worker on verge of heatstroke: keep working

Amazon tries to keep the lid on scenes like this one, described by an ex-Amazon worker who feared he would die on the job.
“I worked there [for Amazon] for a year and I was treated like complete trash,” the young worker said. “One day I actually got really bad heat exhaustion from there when I was trying to keep myself hydrated. I was on water bottle number seven by lunchtime and that still wasn’t cutting it. Everyone agreed at my fulfillment center that it was hotter than usual, and the managers weren’t doing anything about it.”
The company only cared about shipping its goods and making profit.
The worker continued, “I almost passed out while rebinning. I was taken to Amcare [the company medical team] and was told I was only allowed there for 20 minutes because I had to get back on the floor when they knew I was getting very close to having a heat stroke. They even said I was very close to having a heat stroke. So I left Amazon that night and never returned because I felt like my life was more important than dying at the job. If I died there that night I would be number four on the list of people who died while working at my fulfillment center, and I didn’t want that.”

“Why not share the benefits of industrial progress, instead of accepting our fate as slaves for the rich?”

One former warehouse worker in the UK explained: “I worked in a warehouse in Manchester as a picker for XPO/Missguided under conditions very similar to those recounted by Amazon workers. Workers were demeaned with a barrage of dictatorial policies and pushed to the limit of physical and mental endurance. A few workers passed out due to overexertion.”
The worker continued, “Why shouldn’t society share equally the benefits of productive development? After all, it was the workers who built the warehouses, and the means of production and operations, not Bezos. Why not share the benefits of industrial progress, instead of accepting our fate as slaves for the rich? The social condition today is appalling and given the productive forces available, entirely medieval.”

No to nationalism! Unite Amazon workers across the world!

One worker in the UK messaged the International Amazon Workers Voice to report stressful and dangerous conditions at their facility. The worker thanked the IAWV for exposing Bezos’ wealth, but said that part of the problem is that English workers are mistreated while Polish workers are favored.
The International Amazon Workers Voice responded:
“The rich want you to compete with workers of different national origins so that all workers don’t unite and fight the real enemy: the rich. We are socialists, that means we’re for the international unity of the working class, regardless of national origin. English workers have much more in common with workers from Poland than they do with David Cameron, and the Polish workers have more in common with you than they do with Polish oligarchs, too.
“Imagine how much power Amazon workers would have if they united in the US, UK, Poland, Germany, Mexico, China, Germany, India, and all over, in a common struggle for social equality. Divided by nationality, the workers are powerless. But united across the world, the working class is a powerful force that can change the course of history.”
The worker responded with a “thumbs-up.”
Amazon workers, if you have stories to share, sign-up for our newsletter and send them in the comments field. We keep all sources anonymous to protect from arbitrary firing.

Amazon ordered employee to work despite heatstroke risk, sought to cover up incident

By Eric London 
30 May 2017

A former Amazon worker who nearly suffered heatstroke and was ordered by the company to keep working told the International Amazon Workers Voice that Amazon ignored reports of the incident to avoid blame and deny her access to medical attention.
On a sweltering hot summer day in 2016, a young “picker” named Nicole was working on the floor of Amazon’s fulfillment center in Chester, Virginia. Although workers requested that management turn up the air conditioning, Nicole said the company refused. When she nearly passed out, Amazon gave her just 20 minutes of rest and then ordered her back on the floor. The company knew that medical officials warned she could suffer potentially fatal heatstroke.
To this day, Nicole explained, she has been unable to seek medical attention because the corporation ignored a report she filed of the incident.
Amazon workers are familiar with this type of brutal treatment by a corporate giant that prioritizes private profit above the lives of its workers. This is the rule under capitalism: corporations like Amazon cut costs by sacrificing workers’ health to improve the profit margin and enrich the corporate leadership.
“When I made a report about my incident,” Nicole told the IAWV, “I found out they never did my report because they didn’t want to get into trouble. How I found out was I called the Amazon hotline for employees to see if there was a report made so I could go see a doctor about my current condition, and they said they had no report on my incident when I made one. I wanted to because it was a work place accident. And they didn’t want to help me.”
Because the company ignored her report, Nicole said she couldn’t file a workers’ compensation claim or bring a lawsuit against the company for the abuse she said she suffered.
After the incident, Nicole decided that the $12.50 an hour she made was not worth the risk of suffering from the intense heat on the shop floor. But instead of firing her, the company sent her a letter claiming she left the company through “voluntary resignation due to job abandonment.” Because of this, she was ineligible to collect unemployment benefits.
Out of a job and still feeling the effects of the incident, Nicole says she began to have difficulty being outside during the daytime for long periods of time. Though she has finally found new work, she hasn’t seen a doctor despite ongoing side effects because of the high cost of health care in the US. She fears her health will never be the same.
“Ever since I left Amazon I have been having problems with heat in general,” she said. “I haven’t gotten medical attention for it because I had no job and no health insurance. I loved being outside before, and now I can’t enjoy the summertime as I used to. I am basically cursed because of them.”
Nicole is not alone. She described horrific conditions at the Chester, Virginia fulfillment center, which was featured in a 2015 article, “The Life and Death of an Amazon Warehouse Temp.”
“From what I have heard,” Nicole said, “one person had died from a heart attack there. I also heard someone killed themselves by jumping from one of the floors, and not quite sure about the other [deaths at the facility]. We also had a lot of workplace injuries where ambulances were called.
“But no matter what circumstances we were under, management always told us to keep working even if we were hurting. They told us to take some painkillers and get back to work.”
Nicole said it is hard to find news articles of many of the deaths, since Amazon “keeps that under wraps because they don’t want people to know so they can get people to work for them.” She added, “They don’t like us talking about it.”
Despite these conditions, some workers drive from as far away as North Carolina to work at the Chester fulfillment center. Temporary workers make $10 an hour, and many other workers at the facility make $12.
Nicole expressed gratitude that the International Amazon Workers Voice was exposing sweatshop conditions at Amazon fulfillment centers.
“I am for the cause,” she said. “I am all for uniting to show Amazon that they need to listen to how they are treating their people. We work far too hard. I want Amazon to do better or be shut down. I hate seeing my friends being worked to the very core to the point of almost disabling themselves. I don’t want anyone to go through what I am going through right now. I can’t even go to amusement parks which are my favorite places without having a threat of heatstroke.”
She said she would share the IAWV with her friends who still work at the facility and encouraged other workers across the world to step forward and share their stories of abuse.
Amazon workers: contact the IAWV today and help expose Amazon’s exploitation of the working class. We protect anonymity and don’t use names without your approval. Sign-up to receive updates, “like” the IAWV on Facebook, and share this article with your coworkers.

TWITTER TRUMP'S BORDER WALL LIES! NO WALL, AND THOUSANDS OF MUSLIMS HEADED OUR WAY..... ALL ENDORSED BY THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS AND BARACK OBAMA

"Excerpt: You just can't square the circle 

between continuing unfettered access to 

massive guestworker and investment 

programs by greedy employers and shady 

project-selling middlemen on one hand and, 

on the other, giving the people who constitute 

Mr. Trump's base a fair shot at good jobs with 

decent pay."


ATTORNEY GENERAL JEFF SESSIONS ORDERS CALIFORNIA TERMINATED.

MEXICO IMMEDIATELY DENOUNCED THE DECREE AND FIRED SESSIONS.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Emergency Intervention Needed in California NOW!


MEXICO’S BIGGEST EXPORTS TO U.S.: poverty, anchor baby breeders for welfare, criminals, unregistered dems and HEROIN!


By Arthur Schaper

Townhall.com

In California, illegals can vote: it’s possible and very likely. California’s automatic motor-voter law all but assures that illegals seeking driver’s licenses will get a ballot along with their license.

Miscreants from any corner of the world can register to vote in California online, too. No vetting, no assurance, no integrity.

Voter fraud in broken inner city hellholes like Detroit and New York City cannot compare with the ballot stuffing throughout the once Golden State.


CALIFORNIA UNDER MEXCIAN OCCUPATION

California: The sick man of the United States…. A STATE UNDER MEX OCCUPATION!


PUS-SPEWING XAVIER BECERRA…. Is what happens when illegals vote LA RAZA FASCISM.



“As one attorney general, Kamala Harris, steps down to replace Barbara Boxer, another attorney general is secreted out of the glands of selfsame power in the form of pus-spewing Xavier Becerra.
*
It didn’t stop Becerra, a prominent Latino rights  advocate who has served in Congress since 1993, from pushing for the dealer’s release at the request of his 
father, Horacio. The elder Vignali, a rich Los Angeles businessman, contributed thousands of dollars to Becerra’s various campaigns and a favor was in order. 
*
CALIFORNIA UNDER LA RAZA SIEGE:
                  
Mexico’s looting and ethnic cleansing of a once American state.

                                                       
LEGALS AND BUSINESS FLEE CALIFORNIA…. Where Mexico loots first
CA HAS THE HIGHEST TAXES IN THE NATION, THE LARGEST ILLEGAL MEXICAN POPULATION, THE LARGEST MEX WELFARE STATE and HALF THE MURDERS IN CA ARE NOW BY MEXICAN GANGS.

*
LA RAZA MEXICO’S TRILLION DOLLAR LOOTING OF AMERICA
The staggering cost of all that “cheap” Mexican labor:
MEXICANS SUCK IN MORE WELFARE THAN LEGALS!
“The lifetime costs of Social Security and Medicare benefits of illegal immigrant beneficiaries of President Obama’s executive amnesty would be well over a trillion dollars, according to Heritage Foundation expert Robert Rector’s prepared testimony for a House panel obtained in advance by Breitbart News.” 



EL TRUMPO SURRENDERS TO THE MEXICAN FASCIST PARTY of LA RAZA…. Obama’s amnesty handed to them on a silver platter.




*
............................................america surrenders to Mexico without a battle!

THE LA RAZA PLAN: California’s final surrender to fly the Mexican flag within 4 years.

"The American Southwest seems to be slowly returning to the jurisdiction of Mexico without firing a single shot."  -- - EXCELSIOR --- national newspaper of Mexico


They claim all of North America for Mexico!
(WARNING! THE BELOW LINK IS GRAPHIC ON MEXICAN HATRED OF LEGALS)


President Trump has decided to double the number of refugees admitted every week, but hasn't made a major announcement about it. Why not? Won't that help make America great again? Despite repeated efforts by President Trump to curtail re...


Trump quietly doubling number of refugees entering U.S.

President Trump has decided to double the number of refugees admitted every week, but hasn't made a major announcement about it. Why not? Won't that help make America great again?
Despite repeated efforts by President Trump to curtail refugee resettlements, the State Department this week quietly lifted the department’s restriction on the number of refugees allowed to enter the United States.
The result could be a near doubling of refugees entering the country, from about 830 people a week in the first three weeks of this month to well over 1,500 people per week by next month, according to refugee advocates. Tens of thousands of refugees are waiting to come to the United States.
The State Department’s decision was conveyed in an email on Thursday to the private agencies in countries around the world that help refugees manage the nearly two-year application process needed to enter the United States.
Although it came the same day as an appeals court ruling that rejected government efforts to limit travel to the United States from six predominantly Muslim nations, the move by the State Department had nothing to do with the court ruling.
Refugee groups now predict that entries into the United States could increase so rapidly that the total number of refugees admitted by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year, could exceed 70,000. That is well below the 84,994 refugees admitted in fiscal year 2016, but not by nearly as much as many advocates had feared.
Refugee advocates were delighted by the State Department’s decision.
Many of those refugees are coming from unvettable countries like Syria.
Questions for discussion:
1) Is admitting refugees from unvettable countries part of "Putting America First?"
2) If a refugee whom Trump admits to the U.S. later kills some Americans, will Trump supporters say it could have been worse because at least Hillary Clinton wasn't the one to admit them?
3) If Trump truly believes in security for our nation, can you think of any rational reason why he is doing this?

Ed Straker is the senior writer at NewsMachete.com.

THE OBAMA DOCTRINE:

DESTROY AMERICA TO BUILD A MUSLIM-STYLE DICTATORSHIP WHERE LA RAZA MEXICANS VOTE HIM PRESIDENT FOR LIFE

"He is intent on maximizing the damage he inflicted on the country during the two terms of his faux presidency, having now set up shop in Washington to pursue a post-presidency agenda advancing a left-wing insurgency, civil unrest, racial
conflict and the destabilizing activities of a shadow."



CAMPAIGN TO DESTROY AMERICA and take a THIRD TERM FOR LIFE….

Barack Obama’s 8 year sabotage of Homeland Security: His Crony Banksters, La Raza Drug Cartels and MS-13 are right behind his sabotage of U.S. borders!



“Mexican drug cartels are the “other” terrorist threat to America. Militant 

Islamists have the goal of destroying the United States. Mexican drug cartels

are now accomplishing that mission – from within, every day, in virtually

every community across this country.” JUDICIAL WATCH


http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/05/27/trumps-1-6-billion-budget-border-walls-mostly-south-texas/






Trump’s $1.6 Billion Budget for Border Walls — Mostly for South Texas

2


Trump’s $1.6 Billion Budget for Border Walls — Mostly for South Texas

2
mulveney



AP File Photo/Rodrigo Abd
SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTER
·         

President Donald Trump’s 2018 budget asks Congress to construct 60 miles of new border walls along the U.S./Mexico border – all of which would be located in Texas.

The plan is for the Rio Grande Valley Sector to receive 32 miles of a new border wall, and 28 miles of a new levee wall. The levee in Hidalgo County is designed to address flooding. The budget refers to the new border wall as “a physical wall.”
Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said, “We are absolutely dead serious about the wall.” He called it one of President Trump’s “top three” budget priorities, reported Breitbart News on Tuesday. Mulvaney denied that the administration was scaling back funding for border walls by saying the Trump administration’s budget was a striking hike from the 2017 budget. The 2018 budget increases allocations for border security by $1.1 billion, and $1.5 billion for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
The director of the Office of Management and Budget also urged Trump voters to be patient and said this proposed action was a beginning for a project that will be protracted. “Keep in mind; you can’t just … you don’t automatically magically build a wall in the middle of nowhere,” the director stated.
The budget for the U.S. Department of Justice also asks for $1.8 million to “meet litigation, acquisition, and appraisal demands during the construction along the border between Mexico and the United States.” Breitbart News reported that the funds would be used to hire 12 attorneys and eight staff members for the section of the DOJ that defends litigation arising from eminent domain proceedings (the Environmental and Natural Resources Division’s Land Acquisition Section, “LAS”).
Those who are fighting the construction of border walls are mostly on partisan lines. Democratic U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Austin) said “Putting taxpayers on the hook to pay for it is just the latest brick in a wall of broken campaign promises. If we are going to pour billions into concrete, it ought to be an investment in ourselves, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure,” reported Dallas’ WBAP 820 AM on Thursday. However, landowners in Texas say they will fight mightily to keep their property, and they hope the litigation will be protracted beyond any Trump administration tenure. The New York Times report also said there are more than 90 eminent domain lawsuits from landowners in South Texas and they have been pending since 2008.
The Dallas radio station reported that Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) who serves as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Border Security and Immigration said, “If we really want to secure our borders, and I think the voters in this last presidential election indicated they did, we must be willing to devote the necessary level of funding to achieve it.”
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and Facebook.


TEXAS GOV FIGHTS BACK LA RAZA MEX OCCUPATION!
WHY ARE ILLEGALS ABOVE THE LAW?
SANCTUARY CITIES and SANCTUARY STATE of CALIFORNIA: The LA RAZA welfare state on our backs!

 ANOTHER LA RAZA RAPE of a CHILD
NO ONE TOLD THE MEX RAPIST WE HAVE BORDERS!

REPORT:

 

East Texas Child Murdered by Previously Deported Illegal Alien


*
Law enforcement officials in East Texas are reporting the alleged murderer of 10-year-old Kayla Gomez-Orozco is a previously deported illegal alien from Mexico.
  
AMNESTY: WILLIAM GHEEN (ALIPAC) EXPOSES OBAMA’S AGENDA TO SURRENDER OUR BORDERS TO MEXICO



“While the Obama Administration downplays violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities in Texas reveal that Mexican  have transformed parts of the state into a war zone where shootings, beheadings, kidnappings and murders are common.


Draining the Swamp, or Wading in Ever Deeper?

By Dan Cadman

CIS Blog, May 18, 2017

http://cis.org/cadman/draining-swamp-or-wading-ever-deeper

Excerpt: You just can't square the circle 

between continuing unfettered access to 

massive guestworker and investment 

programs by greedy employers and shady 

project-selling middlemen on one hand and, 

on the other, giving the people who constitute 

Mr. Trump's base a fair shot at good jobs with 

decent pay.

Lose your base, Mr. President, and you will be a one-term president. There is no art of the deal in which you can maintain their trust and confidence while giving way to congressional Democrats and Republicans who are catering to those employers and middlemen, who don't believe in your agenda anyway, and who will in the end drop you like a hot potato at the first sign of trouble. The warning signs are already there, are they not?