
Bernie Sanders’ problem with Amazon - prostoalex
https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/28/bernie-sanders-problem-with-amazon/
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pizzazzaro
The marketplace may "set the going rate for labour" and all, but oligopoly and
cartel-ism artificially depress wages.

Much like walmart, Amazon's wages do not respect the costs it takes to survive
and continue working. It's just that simple. If you want your workforce to be
able to do their jobs, they need to be afford a living standard above poverty.

Anything else is either asking taxpayers to fund your business, or financially
gaslighting your workers into failure. How is either option acceptable?

Much like Walmart has historically done, Amazon warehouse workers in the US
get "coached" in how to get food stamps. If you get sick, you risk getting
fired. Get too old, you risk getting fired. Need too much time off? You
guessed it... All of this is federally illegal, but conservative state laws
make it impossible to hold any company accountable.

Move over to their sysadmin side, and you'll see wages $10-20k less / year
than the competition, for 80 hours work in a week instead of the average 60.
And the same issues of what'll get you fired show up here as well.

Combined with the fact that Amazon avoids paying taxes, this makes Jeff Bezos
the biggest welfare queen in existence.

Anyone else wanna kick Jeff Bezos off welfare?

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ALittleLight
One way to think of it is as Bezos being on welfare. Another way to think is
that, presumably, the Amazon workers don't have better jobs available to them.
If they weren't at Amazon then they'd be somewhere paying less, with less
benefits, or unemployed. Without Amazon the workers would require more from
the government. In this sense Amazon is subsidizing social welfare and not the
other way around.

~~~
prostoalex
They briefly mention that in the article - Amazon might be the household name
in e-commerce, but they're kinda small fry as far logistics and fulfillment
industry goes, and apparently a higher-paying one at that: "That Amazon
positions its own offerings as _highly competitive_ can, perhaps, be seen as
something of an indictment of larger issues with warehouse fulfillment. While
the company is an easy target, it’s certainly not alone."

