Prime Day is upon us , a 48 - hour period in which to scoop enceinte deals on ProactivMD Adapalene Gel Acne Kits , amongst other prize point . But mickle - Hunter bed that it ’s always wise to read up on the seller , so we think we ’d roll up a recent guide to Amazon ’s business practice . you could feel a shorter primer inthis petitionby 35 societal justice organizations demanding that lawmakers ban Amazon ’s panopticon - style surveillance and look into abuse .
First , a peak : Gizmodo ’s Victoria Song haspointed outthat Prime Day represents an chance for Amazon to drop junk at a antecedently inflated price for trick us into signing up for Prime rank . It works . Amazon ’s Prime Day statistics tell us that 26.6 % of Americans contrive to turn over them money on this unholy occasion .
“ [ M]any sellers unnaturally blow up prices so their stinky deals await more likeable on Prime Day , ” Song compose . She total that Prime Day forces Amazon sellers to pump up their terms before Prime Day and that you’re able to often find better cost on other big technical school products at competing stores . Just look at thewild fluctuationsin thislistingfor a $ 34.99 third - generation Echo Dot smart speaker , which was $ 18.99 in November 2020 and up to $ 40 in April . ( you’re able to checkCamelCamelCamel.comto avoid getting get laid . )
Photo: Kena Betancur (Getty Images)
If you ’re still curious about how that Echo Dot saucy utterer arrives at your doorstep , we ’ve got blog for you . This tale will be useable on the front page for a limited time only ! Do n’t sleep on this web log post !
Amazon workers contract deadly virus
As the country ’s beginning of essential items in a pandemic , Amazon was well - place to break up the famous title that it treats actor as disposable . or else , we read almostdaily reportsthat sure Amazon warehouses did n’t come after safety guidelines , and workersclaimedthat Amazondidn’t alertthem to the fact that colleagues had covid-19 at all or until it was too former . ( It improved safeguards after workers throughout the companyprotested . ) While a venomous virus we knew little about spread throughout the world , the ship’s company evidence it was unforced to step over organic structure to filldildo ordination . Butwook at this good boy .
March 2020 : Lawmakers Demand Amazon Get Serious About Worker Safety Amid Covid-19 Pandemic [ link ]
March 2020 : Amazon Fires Worker Who Organized Strike Over Conditions Amid Coronavirus Outbreak [ link ]
Photo: Spencer Platt (Getty Images)
April 2020 : Leaked Memo Shows Amazon Elite Outlining Smear Campaign Against Fired Employee : Report [ link ]
May 2020 : At Least 7 Amazon Workers Have break of Covid-19 as Company decline to Release Official Numbers [ link ]
October 2020 : closely 20,000 Amazon Employees Have constrict Covid-19 This Year [ connection ]
Photo: Patrick T. Fallon (Getty Images)
December 2020 : California ’s AG Is Now prove to squeeze Amazon to Comply With Subpoenas Probing Covid Labor Concerns [ link ]
February 2021 : New York Attorney General Sues Amazon Over ‘ Flagrant Disregard ’ For Covid Safety [ link ]
Amazon beats back a union
This twelvemonth , scummy - remuneration warehouse worker pock themselves against the world’sfifth - largest employerwith a marriage effort at a storage warehouse in the small townsfolk of Bessemer , Alabama . After the Retail , Wholesale , and Department Store Union ( RWDSU ) reported that a majority of workers signedunion authorization cards , Amazon plastered anti - union slogans in toilet stalls and submit workers to lengthycaptive - interview sessionstrying toconvincethem that a trade union would cause them to miss money . After worker vote against unionizing , RWDSU PresidentStuart Appelbaum saidthat Amazon had threaten to shut out the warehouse down . Some labor expert secern Gizmodo that they werenot surprisedwhen the vote failed .
April 2020 : The openhanded Threat to Amazon Is Human Well - Being [ link ]
September 2020 : Amazon Is Openly hire Union - Busters [ link ]
Photo: Image sent to Gizmodo by a subcontracted delivery driver
January 2021 : Amazon Warehouse Employees in Alabama Will Vote to Unionize [ connexion ]
February 2021 : Twitch rive Its Parent Company ’s Union - Busting Ads [ link ]
February 2021 : Amazon Fails to Stall Unionization Vote in Alabama [ link ]
Photo: Amazon
March 2021 : Inspired by Alabama Coworkers , Amazon Employees Nationwide start Union Talks : Report [ nexus ]
April 2021 : Amazon Union Vote Fails in Bessemer , as Union Calls for Investigation [ link ]
April 2021 : email Show Amazon Pressured USPS to Install Mailbox at Alabama Warehouse onwards of Union Vote [ connection ]
Photo: Paul Morigi (Getty Images)
April 2021 : Union move for resultant of Amazon Vote in Alabama to Be nullified [ link ]
April 2021 : Amazon ’s Already raid Out Its Anti - Union Playbook in Staten Island [ link ]
Amazon denies pee bottles, gets fined for stealing tips, increases hours, expands surveillance apparatus
Sometime soon after the holidays , Amazon sprung a grueling 10 - to - eleven - hour all-night shift on prole , many of whom have claimed that they finger no option but to take the shift or turn a loss their Job . ( Amazon has said that it cater alternate slip elsewhere , but many have said that the aloofness is too far or thatno such job were availableand look the MHz to come them . ) Proof go forth that Amazon ’s shadow workforce of contracted drivers pee in bottles ; Amazon went junky deny it on Twitter ; Jeff Bezos may have been behind a fusillade of demented tweets ; Amazonadmittedthat workers do n’t have sufficient entree to sleep stop . In keeping with long time of billowy injury report at Amazon storage warehouse ( 24,000 serious injuries in 2020 alone ) , a issue of advocacy grouping arepetitioningfor changes .
February 2021 : Amazon Springs Ten - minute ‘ Megacycle ’ Shifts on Its Workers [ link ]
February 2021 : Amazon Will Have to Pay Back the $ 61.7 Million It Swindled From Drivers ’ Tips [ connexion ]
February 2021 : Amazon announce Totally Not Alarming Plan to Install Surveillance Cameras in Every Delivery Vehicle [ link ]
February 2021 : Hundreds of Amazon Drivers match That They Deserve a Union in an Informal Driver - Led Survey [ link ]
March 2021 : Amazon Execs Apparently Need to See Some Pee Pics [ link ]
March 2021 : Amazon Is Getting Sued for fail to Give Warehouse Workers Meal and Rest Breaks [ link ]
April 2021 : Amazon Mumbles ‘ Sorry ’ for Denying That Its Workers Pee in feeding bottle , Says Uber and UPS Drivers Do It , Too [ data link ]
April 2021 : Amazon ’s Worker - Crushing Megacycle Is arouse a Battle [ connection ]
May 2021 : Amazon : Overworked Warehouse employee Can Go Reflect in the Despair Closet [ link ]
Amazon nibbles at small businesses
At least we still have third - company sellers and the desiccate remains of brick - and - mortar stores , which hit us proud to walk all the way down the stop to the 99 penny entrepot for paper towel . That might not last long , bet on whether the federal government buzz off it together and reforms antimonopoly jurisprudence .
June 2020 : Amazon ’s Reportedly Fielding Probes From California , Washington State Over Trade Practices [ link ]
July 2020 : Jeff Bezos Tells Congress He ‘ Ca n’t insure ’ Amazon Is n’t violate Its Own Policies to Undercut vendor [ link ]
August 2020 : Amazon Can Add Germany and Canada to Its List of Investigation Headaches [ contact ]
October 2020 : Apple , Facebook , Google , and Amazon Are the Big monopoly You Thought They Were , lawgiver come up [ radio link ]
November 2020 : Amazon Hit With Multibillion - Dollar Antitrust Action in EU [ connection ]
April 2021 : Amazon Was Reportedly Considering a Chain of Discount Stores Before the Pandemic Hit [ link ]
April 2021 : Amazon Reportedly Pressures Small Businesses with Retaliation if They Do n’t Hand Over User Data [ radio link ]
April 2021 : Amazon Is Opening a Hair Salon , Seriously [ connection ]
April 2021 : Amazon charge of Working With Book Publishers In cost - Fixing Scheme [ link ]
Amazon saves the environment maybe
Amazonhas promisedto shift solely to renewable energy for its operations by 2025 , and Jeff Bezoshas pledgedto throw $ 10 billion to “ save Earth , ” which is less than he made in asingle dayduring the pandemic . These are good and big hope , butadvocates and employeessay that low - income communities near exhaust - fill up Amazon hand truck routes are n’t reaping the benefit . It ’s unclearwhetherclimate refugees will get first dibs on the off - world space city .
June 2020 : The Danger of Amazon ’s $ 2 Billion Climate Fund [ link ]
September 2020 : The Amazonification of Climate Change Is Here [ tie-in ]
December 2020 : Climate Polluters Write a Letter Asking to Be Lightly regulate Please [ link ]
December 2020 : Five of 2020 ’s Top Climate Grifters [ link ]
February 2021 : Amazon Is Creating an Empire of Trash [ link ]
April 2021 : Amazon Ca n’t Just Change Its Rules to Squash [ clime ] Activism , NLRB Finding intimate [ tie ]
May 2021 : Amazon Workers Are petition the Company to Bring Its Pollution to Zero By 2030 [ link ]
Jeff Bezos made more money than ever
Jeff Bezos reclaimed his stain as the richest man in the worldly concern . So unfathomably plenteous , that , according toan Oxfam study , he could have paid every one of his 876,000 employee a $ 105,000 fillip and still break out even . At least , that ’s the dream .
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