Organize Amazon!
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos earns just under $9,000,000.00 per hour, that’s $150,000 per minute and $2,500 per second. An Amazon worker earns approximately $15.00 per hour, that’s $0.25 per minute and less than half a cent per second. At that rate of pay a worker would have to work 166 hours to make what Bezos earns in one second. An Amazon worker would have to work 3,667 hours per year to make the average household median income in the state of Missouri. Jeff Bezos makes that in 22 seconds.
I don’t think most people begrudge Bezos earning high wages. Hell, he built a bulletproof company that rakes in zillions! The problem is he doesn’t think his workers are worth much more than poverty wages all while earning more in an hour than 95% of his workers will earn in a lifetime!
There is currently a union organizing drive at Amazon and employees will be able to vote for or against joining a union. It appears that Bezos has serious concerns that if his employees vote for union representation he might have to pay a few dollars more, provide better benefits and honor some union protections for the workers. And apparently that scares the hell out of the zillionaire. He gathered up a few million in pocket change (most likely from his sofa) and hired the Pinkerton to spy on his workers.
Pinkerton is a notorious union busting firm which can trace their anti-union roots all the way back to the 1800’s and set up a website for members to rat out their union supporting co-workers. The website is full of misleading information like this; “IF YOU’RE PAYING DUES…it will be RESTRICTIVE meaning it won’t be easy to be as helpful and social with each other. So be a DOER, stay friendly and get things done versus paying dues.” He makes sure to let his employees know he doesn’t pay them enough with this statement; “Don’t buy that dinner, don’t buy those school supplies, don’t buy those gifts because you won’t have that almost $500 you paid in dues. WHY NOT save the money and get the books, gifts and things you want? DO IT without dues!” Five hundred dollars per year in union dues…$500.00 in union dues…based on a worker working 2,000 hours that would be $00.25 cents per hour. Mr. Bezos is concerned that his employees might spend twenty-five cents an hour on union representation. Representation that would offer many benefits that his employees may not have.
Bezos should be embarrassed. I am reminded of a quote our nation’s 23rd President Benjamin Harrison;
“I cannot always sympathize with that demand which we hear so frequently for cheap things. Things may be too cheap. They are too cheap when the man or woman who produces them upon the farm or the man or woman who produces them in the factory does not get out of them LIVING WAGES with a margin for old age and for a dowry for the incidents that are to follow. I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or shapes it into a garment will starve in the process.”
If you are an employee of Amazon vote for union representation, vote to level the playing field with Bezos, vote not just for your future but for the future of your children and their children.
