Though online retail has been a booming market for a long time now, 2020’s forced isolation of so many people has seen the sector explode even further.
This is true for almost every company with an online retail presence, but Amazon continues to be the juggernaut.
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However, new reporting from Bloomberg about the welfare of Amazon warehouse workers is continuing to raise questions about the company’s practices.
One person particularly incensed by the Bloomberg piece is US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
She shared a link to the article on Twitter along with her own commentary about how it is another example of why Amazon jobs are “scams” and not the panacea of economic welfare the company claims them to be.
Many small communities are excited when an Amazon fulfillment center opens in their area.
It brings a huge influx of jobs to an area that may be struggling, and Amazon has touted their default $15-per-hour starting wage as a boon, since it is much more than the federal minimum wage.
However, Bloomberg’s reporting reveals that while the initial boom in jobs can be great for a community, it is rough in the longterm.
An Amazon warehouse job is great compared to a minimum wage job in fast food with no health benefits.
However, warehouses and other jobs in the logistics area used to be solid, middle-class union jobs, with the higher wages and clout that come with them.
Amazon’s practices have begun to erode those as well, as cultural expectations of what a logistics job should pay drop.
“A Bloomberg analysis of government labor statistics reveals that in community after community where Amazon sets up shop, warehouse wages tend to fall,” the piece says.
Meanwhile, Amazon’s continued forays into advanced robotics and algorithms to speed fulfillment time has resulting in a large increase in workplace injuries.
Basically, the automated processes are so fast that it’s causing unrealistic quotas and expectations of how quickly a human being can work to keep up, resulting in accidents and injury.
“At the most common kind of warehouse, workers called pickers – who previously had to grab and scan about 100 items an hour – were expected to hit rates of up to 400 an hour at robotic fulfillment centers,” explained an article by Reveal in September 2020.
And now with Bloomberg’s report showing how many of those “better than minimum wage” employees struggle financially, Amazon is under more scrutiny.
Especially as CEO Jeff Bezos’ personal net worth increased by an estimated 65%, coming in at about $182 billion in 2020.
However, as many have noted, Amazon continues to pay very little or even $0 in taxes each year by utilizing various tax credits and loopholes.
That lack of federal income tax from one of the biggest companies in the world is a particular sticking point for progressive politicians like AOC.
Many updates to social programs get halted over concerns surrounding how the government could pay for such things without increasing taxes for everyone.
AOC’s point is that if corporations like Amazon paid their fair share, we would all be better off for it.
