just bc i’ve seen this sentiment expressed by a lot of ppl who want to support the amazon worker’s strike but don’t know how:
buying from amazon during the period of the strike does nothing to benefit the striking workers. the purpose of the strike is not to “show amazon how crucial its workers are,” and placing more orders is not going to somehow “overwhelm” amazon’s warehouses. the purpose of the strike is to inhibit amazon’s ability to draw in profit. the workers are striking so that the facilities in which they work will no longer be able to function. this is part of a strategy of disrupting amazon’s logistics so that ultimately their profit margins fall and amazon execs will be forced to acknowledge the workers’ complaints and negotiate with them.
if you purchase from amazon during the strike, your money is still going into the same pockets as it would any other time. if you purchase during the strike, the labor necessary to handle your order is going to be passed onto someone else regardless—whether it’s a facility in another region, workers who aren’t striking, or workers who were brought in to replace the strikers. if you purchase during the strike, you are actively funding amazon’s strikebreaking ability. yes, maybe they won’t be able to ship your package on time, or it will never be shipped, and you’ll be refunded (or not!), but that in no way constitutes as a win for the strikers. purchasing something from amazon, regardless of the circumstances, serves only to benefit the corporation, not the workers who fulfill the orders from start to finish—that’s the point of why they’re striking in the first place.
on the other hand, by boycotting amazon in solidarity with the striking workers, you will be limiting amazon’s ability to draw a profit during a large sale event—companies like amazon rely on business tactics such as sales to extract as much profit as they can from their workers. boycotting prevents them from being able to do so.
if you’re interested in following the events of this strike, as well as other resistance efforts against amazon: https://amazonenlucha.wordpress.com/ is the website run by the organizers of the strike.
I firmly believe that not only should we raise the minimum wage, but we should also create a maximum wage. There is no reason in which an orthopedic surgeon, which is the highest paying doctor will make an average of $464,500 a year, while the top 10 CEOs earn well over $33 BILLION a year. If we even so much as cap their earning potential at $1 billion, which is more money than anyone should really need to live a happy fulfilling lifestyle, then it would force them to put that money toward the company or be punished. This means giving their employees better health insurance, giving them more vacations, better wages, paying for their college or their children’s education, creating more jobs, and improving the functionality of their companies. Perhaps even force them to invest in the communities they are serving.
For those of you who are still skeptical… let me put it this way… the highest earning CEO “earned” $156,077,912 in 2014.
Let’s boil this down. There’s about 52 weeks in a year. Let’s say that he works 40 hours a week. So a total of 2,080 hours a year. That’s $75,037 an hour. The median HOUSEHOLD income in the US is $50,502 per year. He’s earning 1.5 times the amount per hour than the average household makes in a year. That disparity is absurd.
To put that even further into perspective, the average NEUROLOGIST earns $219,000 a year according to a 2014 statistic. Every single one of the CEOs on the 100 highest paid CEOs earn at least 93 TIMES the amount that a NEUROLOGIST makes.
Something needs to change. People shouldn’t be starving for the sake of someone else’s greed.
Reminder: Do not buy from Amazon or even open the website on 10 July 2018, in solidarity with the transnational strike.
Amazon workers in Spain have called for a transnational strike because Amazon has been avoiding accountability for its labour rights violations by merely shifting the work (and the human rights abuses Amazon inflicts on their workers) to non-striking countries, each time a strike occurs. If there is widespread striking transnationally, Amazon will have no choice but to recognize the strikers’ demands in order to keep their facilities functioning.
Our job as allies is to support the strike by avoiding using the Amazon website or purchasing anything from Amazon for as long as the strike continues. A mass boycott of the site, coinciding with the strike, will strengthen the workers’ bargaining position and could be crucial to Amazon workers gaining back basic rights in a variety of countries.
Explain this to your friends and family who might not have heard about the boycott or the strike or why it’s necessary.
Amazon workers are literally collapsing and sometimes dying in warehouses that do not all have climate control. A few years ago Amazon stationed ambulances outside their warehouses rather than just install AC to prevent mass heatstroke for their workers, but after media picked up the story they added AC to some – only some – of their warehouses.
These workers are forced into 10+ hour shifts during which they walk 10+ miles. They’re subject to a grueling pace and fired for minor mistakes. They are not allowed to sit down and are discouraged from using the bathroom, which is often so far away in the massive warehouse that there isn’t time to use it even during their breaks. They can be fired for being ill, even with proof they were in hospital.
They are being paid so little and working such long hours – and sometimes, being charged so much by Amazon-arranged transport shuttles to take them to warehouses far from any housing – that some are forced to sleep under bridges or in the woods near their workplace. Longtime warehouse workers are saying they’ve never seen the kinds of exploitation and abuse that occurs in an Amazon warehouse.
So yeah, I actually lost my voice at work today. Totally lost. Not a froggy rumble or a harsh rasp – only able to speak in a whisper, like a new parent trying to avoid waking up the sleeping baby.
Here is what I learned from the experience:
People always whisper back to you if you start a conversation in a whisper.
Some people are incapable of returning to speaking in a normal voice, as long as you are whispering – even if you point out that they are whispering needlessly.
Kids think whispering at the doctor’s office is fun.
It is impossible to dictate a chart into a telephone when all you can do is whisper. Don’t bother trying – the transcriptionist will just send you a file that is 95% blank lines and a note saying, “Maybe you should take a break.” (We have a cool transcriptionist).
Nurses love it when the doctor can only whisper. My nurses spent the day yelling “EHH, WHAT’S THAT YOU SAY? SPEAK UP SONNY!” very loudly when I’d give them an order.
My secretaries started making up stories for the patients about my lost voice. “Oh, he’s been taking yodeling lessons.” “He does sword-swallowing as a hobby.” (Har. Har.)
Quote of the day, from a woman while I was stitching up her cut finger and whispering to keep her distracted:
I feel like we’re spies behind enemy lines! I wonder who will play us in the movie of this moment?
An interesting day. 🙂
Lost my voice again today. Then I had to examine this guy’s armpit for swollen lymph nodes, and in reply to my question of “Does anything feel uncomfortable as I do this?”, he deadpans:
“You mean, besides some guy I never met before whispering to me while he puts his hand in my armpit? Naw, nothing.”
i’ve been spending more time on twitter lately which means seeing new and spicy types of discourse, and the latest trend is arguing that “homophobia” is problematic because it’s ableist toward people with clinical phobias, and the substitute word on offer is “queermisia.”
i said that shit out loud and my furniture started floating
Death By Catchphrase 