Robert Reich on Amazon’s Slavery And Exploitation of Workers

Friends, 

I can't resist telling you something else I've learned about Amazon -- one of America's most profitable and fastest-growing corporations, headed by the richest man in the world, and also one of the most irresponsible toward its workers. 

Work-related injury data just released from the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration shows that Amazon warehouse jobs are particularly dangerous. Last year, Amazon had nearly double the rate of serious injury incidents as non-Amazon warehouses. 

In addition, largely because Amazon failed to provide it workers adequate protective equipment, the corporation admits that nearly 20,000 Amazon employees were tested or presumed positive for the coronavirus.

Workers who have spoken out about these unsafe workplace conditions have been fired.

I don't have to remind you that Amazon’s wages are lousy. Amazon boasts of paying its workers at least $15 an hour. That’s about $30,000 a year -- hardly enough for a family to get by on.

The explosive growth of Amazon’s army of poorly-paid and ill-treated hourly workers is emblematic of the long-term decline of America’s middle class and the Gilded Age levels of economic inequality America tolerates -- a situation that has strained the social fabric of the nation, even tempting some working-class people to embrace Trumpism and white nationalism. 

The success of Amazon’s “shock and awe” campaign against workers who dared try to bring a union to their Bessemer, Alabama warehouse exemplifies the immense political power the architects of this growing inequality now wield -- and an alarming omen of the future. 

In Amazon warehouses like Bessemer, workers are treated like robots. Algorithms relentlessly impose dangerous production quotas. They get two 30-minute breaks each ten-hour day. Every movement is monitored. 

Amazon delivery drivers report being instructed to turn off their safety apps so they can meet their quotas. Others report having to urinate into bottles because of delivery timing pressures. 

Even though public support for unions is as high as it’s been in 50 years, and 60 million American workers would join a union today if they could, Bessemer workers were outgunned by a behemoth whose market capitalization exceeds Australia’s GDP.   

The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) makes it illegal for employers to fire workers for trying to organize, but the penalties for doing so are laughably small (rehiring the worker and providing back pay) that employers like Amazon routinely do it anyway.

Amazon may be the future of the American economy. But if that future is to have room for the kind of prosperous working families that fifty years ago defined American capitalism, unions are critical. 

In March, the House of Representatives passed legislation designed to level the field in the battle for union representation. It’s called the Protect the Right to Organize Act, (PRO Act).  The Senate version has 47 Democratic co-sponsors.  

The PRO Act would end many of the practices Amazon used to defeat the union effort in Bessemer. Real penalties would be imposed on companies and corporate officers who retaliate against union advocates or otherwise violate the National Labor Relations Act.

The PRO Act makes it easier for workers to form a union with the aim of protecting them from unfair working conditions.

The PRO Act alone won’t end economic inequality or return prosperity and opportunity to America’s working families. And passage in the face of fierce partisan and corporate opposition, remains a long shot.  

But passage of the PRO Act would send a clear signal that ours is truly a government “of the people” -- such as the million people who work for Amazon today, not the one multi-billionaire at the top, and the vast majority of Americans who are working harder than ever today and getting nowhere, in America’s Second Gilded Age. 

My view is the PRO Act is critical, and must be enacted. What do you think?[Robert Reich]