"But the immense profits produced on the backs of its workforce are not used to improve living conditions for the masses of working people; they enrich a narrow layer of the super-rich.
By E.P. Milligan
7 September 2018
Amazon market capitalization surpasses $1 trillion
By E.P. Milligan
7 September 2018
Amazon’s market capitalization reached over $1 trillion in value on Tuesday, making it the second company to do so in US history after Apple. Although Amazon’s share value receded to $2,039.51 by the end of Tuesday trading, Amazon’s share value has soared by 108 percent over the past year alone.
The growth of massive corporate behemoths like Amazon is not the product of its supposed “creative ingenuity.” Amazon’s soaring profits, like those of Apple, are the direct result of the brutal exploitation of its workforce. Amazon and its owners stand atop a mountain of broken bones, hernias, torn knee and back muscles, heat strokes, stress-induced asthma attacks, and countless other lifelong bodily injuries.
The historic character of the rise of Amazon demonstrates once again that the inevitable outcome of capitalist development is monopolization. Amazon exemplifies how technological advances are subordinated to the profit motive under capitalism.
Amazon is a massive operation, international in nature, which now employs 566,000 people across many countries and 5 continents. It utilizes state-of-the-art technology and information systems to mobilize and integrate the worldwide distribution of millions of goods. But the immense profits produced on the backs of its workforce are not used to improve living conditions for the masses of working people; they enrich a narrow layer of the super-rich.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made $1.8 billion on Tuesday alone. Broken down, this means Bezos made $20,833 per second, an amount roughly equivalent to what an Amazon worker makes in a year. He made $67 billion this year—equivalent to $8 million an hour. Bezos is now the richest man on earth, with a net worth of $164.7 billion. Based on the average US annual income of $28,446, it would take an Amazon worker over five million years to accumulate an amount equal to their CEO’s wealth—about equal to the time since humans genetically split off from gorillas and chimpanzees.
The pay for many US workers is even lower. Base pay at Amazon is $12 per hour, which amounts to less than $25,000 per year.
Coverage by the International Amazon Workers’ Voice (IAWV) newsletter has cited reports by workers at multiple facilities who have seen coworkers sleeping in their cars. Inside the facilities, workers face a high-tech dystopia, characterized by long hours and an authoritarian industrial regime. “It is like being tortured in your mind and your body for 10 hours a night,” one worker, Shannon Allen said. Another worker described the work as “modern day slavery.”
A worker in the UK said that the company penalizes workers for getting hurt. “Someone hurt on the job? It gets raised to a leader who then calls first aid, they take a statement then ask if you are returning to work or going home. Going home incurs a half-point penalty.”
All over the world, the company forces workers to labor at fast, tiring, and often dangerous speeds. The UK worker said: “I still have near misses and collisions from people rushing…now it’s faster, faster, faster. It’s all about being on the go, meeting rates and targets.”
Amazon is ramping up the exploitation of its workforce as it prepares for another massive expansion. Last year, the company announced plans to open a second headquarters, though the decision as to where the facilities will be located has not yet been finalized. It also recently purchased 20,000 vans from Mercedes-Benz, with which the company plans to establish a network of contractors to carry out their last-mile delivery services. This development will deal a harsh blow to the US Postal Service, which currently handles 40 percent of last-mile deliveries. It also has begun to muscle its way into the $88 billion online ad market, with clear plans to surpass tech giants Google and Facebook.
Amazon workers have begun to fight back against their grueling working conditions and low pay. Strikes broke out at facilities in Spain, Germany, Poland, Italy and France this summer, and hundreds of workers have written in to the IAWV to describe the brutal exploitation they face at the hands of the company.
The ruling class has begun efforts to neutralize the growing opposition to social inequality, low wages, and sweatshop conditions. In particular, the Democratic Party is seeking to take control of these struggles and direct them back into safe channels like the Teamsters Union and the political orbit of Bernie Sanders, who endorsed Hillary Clinton for president after the 2016 Democratic primaries.
On Wednesday, Sanders introduced a bill that would tax corporations for the federal benefits their employees receive. The bill, named Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies or “BEZOS Act,” would establish a 100% tax on companies equal to the public assistance programs their employees depend on to live.
This legislation does nothing to address the unsafe conditions workers face and will not raise wages or lead to an improvement in their lives. It is significant that the bill instead is intended to provide the government money which it will likely hand back over to the corporations in the form of tax cuts and deregulation. On top of this, the bill’s authors and sponsors know it has no chance of passage.
In contrast, the Socialist Party demands the immediate seizure of all of Jeff Bezos’s assets and their immediate distribution to meet the needs of the working class, including by massive expenditures on public transportation, healthcare, education, and the provision of food, water and housing to those in need. The corporation must be transformed into a public utility to be run not for the private profit of a few but to meet human need.
To accomplish this historical task, Amazon workers require organization—not through the corrupt trade unions that take their dues money to pay the salaries of bureaucrats—but fighting organizations run by and for the workers themselves. Such organizations, workplace committees, will be based on the principles of democracy and workers’ control of production, and will fight to educate the working class as a whole about the conditions Amazon workers face while inviting other sections of the working class to join in a common struggle against the massive corporations.
"Sanders also cited a recent report from the New Food Economy, which found that one in three Amazon employees in Arizona received food stamps in 2017."
Bernie Sanders Introduces ‘Stop BEZOS Act’ to Bill Companies for Federal Welfare Programs
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) threw some not-so-subtle shade at Amazon and its CEO Jeff Bezos on Wednesday when he introduced a bill that would allow the government to charge big corporations for the federal welfare programs its low-income workers use.
The “Stop BEZOS Act,” which stands for “Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies Act,” would stick big companies with a bill for federal welfare programs commonly used by their low-wage workers and stem the flow taxpayer-funded subsidies for companies paying their workers low wages.
“At a time of massive income and wealth inequality, when the 3 wealthiest people in America own more wealth than the bottom 50 percent and when 52 percent of all new income goes to the top one percent, the American people are tired of subsidizing multi-billionaires who own some of the largest and most profitable corporations in America,” Sanders said in a statement.
The Vermont senator said that Amazon — which became the second company to be valued at over $1 trillion on Tuesday — is one of the companies responsible for using the federal government to subsidize its workforce, paying more than half of its employees an average of $13.67 an hour, or $28,500 a year.
Sanders also cited a recent report from the New Food Economy, which found that one in three Amazon employees in Arizona received food stamps in 2017.
Amazon, however, refuted those statistics in a blog post, claiming that the company provides “highly competitive wages” and “a comprehensive benefits package including health insurance, disability insurance, retirement savings plans, and company stock” to its employees.
The trend of Amazon employees receiving food stamps is nothing new, however. Another report from January found that more than 1,400 Amazon workers in Ohio were on food stamps, and ten percent of company employees in the area claimed some form of federal assistance.
The online retail giant not only relies on the government to subsidize their workforce, but it is also one of the top sponsors of the H-1B visa — which is extended to foreign workers. The company requested 2,515 H-1B visas for foreign workers in 2017, far surpassing the number of foreign workers requested by companies like Google and Facebook.
BLOG: FEW HAVE PUSHED HARDER FOR AMNESTY TO KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED THAN BERNIE SANDERS!
But the trend of companies like Amazon relying on the government to help provide cheap labor, largely from other countries, may already be on the downswing.
Because President Donald Trump recently placed a cap on the number of foreign workers entering the U.S., Bezos and other retail warehouse employers are being pressured to increase their wages for their massive workforce and potentially rely less on imported labor.
ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN WORKER…. Amazon’s JEFF BEZOS PLAN FOR A NEW AMERICAN SLAVERY
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG
MODERN SLAVER JEFF BEZOS
AMAZON’S ASSAULT ON AMERICA CONTINUES
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
"Amazon is a massive wrecking machine consuming American retail. It's looting the economy and leaving behind rubble. " --- DANIEL GREENFIELD FRONTPAGE MAG
"Today, each of the top 5 billionaires owns as much as 750 million people, more than the total population of Latin America and double the population of the US."
“A comprehensive new report released Sunday by the New York-based labor rights watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW) has shed new light on the barbaric and illegal practices that Amazon employs to boost its profits by driving down production costs on the backs of factory workers at the company’s electronics assembly plants in China.”
JEFF BEZOS of AMAZON DECLARES THAT AMERICAN-BORN SLAVES ARE NOT CHEAP ENOUGH. CHINA MUST DELIVER THE REAL SLAVE LABOR!
“A comprehensive new report released Sunday by the New York-based labor rights watchdog China Labor Watch (CLW) has shed new light on the barbaric and illegal practices that Amazon employs to boost its profits by driving down production costs on the backs of factory workers at the company’s electronics assembly plants in China.”
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
AMAZON’S JEFF BEZOS IS THE FACE OF
MODERN SLAVERY!
The gains for employees are a novel pain for the investors and employers who have been able to hold down wages for decades because the federal government is trying to grow the economy via cheap-labor legal immigration.
“INVESTORS” HAVE AND WILL DESTROY
THIS NATION IF IT WOULD IMPACT THE
NEXT QUARTER’S EARNINGS!
Amazon, the multinational online retail conglomerate, is importing more foreign workers to the United States to take coveted tech industry jobs than Facebook and Google combined. JOHN BINDER
Retail and wage blather abounds
Since the economy is so good and a significant majority of supposed journalists want to destroy President Trump and elect Democrats, they search far and wide for what they perceive are negative stories with which they can propagandize the public. The following is a story by the Washington Post News Service:
James Collins has been working at Walmart for six years. His pay: $11 an hour, the same as what a new hire would make on their [sic] first day of work.Collins, a 65-year-old maintenance worker at a Dallas store, joined the company when the starting hourly wage was $8. Over the years, Walmart has steadily raised that rate, in part to attract workers in a tightening labor market. But data shows that pay for longer-term workers like Collins has remained stubbornly stagnant."There's no appreciation for experience anymore," Collins said. "Someone could walk off the street today and get paid the same as me."
Their idea is to tell the public that retail employment is not good or fair.
Start by noticing that the story is about Walmart, the country's largest employer. I have to wonder why it isn't about Amazon, since Jeff Bezos owns both Amazon and the Post.
The article actually has some interesting pieces of information.
The writers essentially complain that a worker who is 65 and who has been there for six years isn't being rewarded for his seniority because new workers are also starting around the same $11 an hour that he is making. I actually find it fascinating that Walmart has given him a 37.5% raise over six years from $8 to $11 per hour. Isn't that amazing that the largest employer gave around 6% per year even though the government didn't require it to?
We are always told that the government needs to raise the minimum wage, but what we see is that the private sector is actually doing it, because capitalism and the marketplace are pushing wages up.
The writers also complain that the worker isn't being rewarded for experience and seniority. Haven't unions always done that? Doesn't a three-year electrician, plumber, carpenter, teamster, etc. essentially make the same as other union members who have been on the job for ten, twenty, or thirty years? I don't remember the media complaining about that.
The Washington Post article continues like this:
Retailers have made headlines for raising their minimum hourly wages in quick succession – CVS to $11, Costco to $13, Target to $15 by 2020 – while 29 states and the District now require that employers pay more than the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. But economists say those gains have not translated to higher wages among mid-level workers.The average hourly wage paid to retail workers dropped to $18.58 in June, from $18.65 a month earlier, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Year over year, the average hourly retail wage has risen 2 percent, from $18.15.)Economists cite a number of factors, including a decline in union jobs and fewer opportunities to move up within the industry. Add to that high turnover rates and a trend toward part-time work, and the result has been a growing group of retail workers who may be making higher minimum wages but continue to feel stuck in low-paying positions.Chief Executive Doug McMillon, meanwhile, received $22.8 million in compensation last year, up 2 percent from the year before, according to company filings.
Then the article says retail wages were down 7 cents per hour last month. I assume that the statistical sample may have shown that, but I would challenge the journalists to find retail workers whose salary was cut last month. It's a go-go economy, and something else would have to be at work if wages really fell. The article notes that several retailers are raising their wages, and more people are quitting their jobs each month than ever, and there are one million fewer part-time jobs than when Trump took office, while Hispanic, black, and female unemployment, along with total unemployment, are near all-time lows. People over twenty-five without a high school diploma have also seen their unemployment rate drop from 7.6% to a record low 5.1%.
Now, which of those pieces of information would make a journalist believe that existing retail workers are taking a pay cut?
Here's something more like it, from Bloomberg:
Americans' confidence in employment prospects is soaring as the labor market tightens. The latest proof: A record number are voluntarily quitting to seek better jobs.Some 3.56 million workers left positions in May, the most in data back to 2000, and up from the prior month's 3.35 million, Labor Department data showed Tuesday. That pushed up the quits rate, which measures quitters as a share of employed people, to a 17-year high of 2.4 percent from 2.3 percent. With more workers feeling assured of finding better employment, sustained wage gains may soon follow.
Then we get the gratuitous comment about CEO pay to gin up hate for the rich. The stories we always see are similar to the garbage the Economic Policy Institute puts out. Take a gander:
According to a report from the Economic Policy Institute, the average CEO pay is 271 times the nearly $58,000 annual average pay of the typical American worker.
All this kvetching, while the actual median pay of 210,160 CEOs in May of 2017, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was $183,270.
The number is easy to find, but obviously, it doesn't fit the Democrat agenda, so it is effectively hidden from the public.
Left-wing senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders earn almost as much as a median CEO in the U.S at $174,000 per year, and their pensions and other benefits dwarf those of the average CEO, yet they stir up hate against business-owners.
Here are the salaries of some of the pundits who get paid to basically regurgitate Democrat talking points :Joe Scarborough: $4 million; Rachel Maddow: $7 million; Chris Matthews: $5 million; Chris Cuomo: $2.5 million.
I understand why young people think socialism is good: they have been misled by professors. I do not understand why seasoned journalists would spew forth such nonsense. Capitalism is what helps lift most people out of poverty, not socialism.
The Democrat agenda of government-run health care, free college, higher minimum wages (no matter what the local market is), massively higher taxes, open borders, sanctuary cities and states, zero fossil fuels, and massively higher taxes would destroy America, yet that is what most of the media supports on a daily basis.
Thank God we elected Trump to make America great again, instead of Hillary, who would have continued the path toward destruction of the greatest economy that ever existed.
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