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Today begins Amazon Prime Day, a two-day event of price slashing and Echo-pushing. We may get some great deals, but the warehouse workers packaging our purchases are suffering. Amazon has mandated overtime for workers this week. There are 200,000+ more workers in the warehouses than there were six months ago. Quota requirements make it impossible to social distance or sanitize effectively -- which is why 20,000 Amazon workers have contracted COVID-19 so far.(1) In a Hawthorne, California, Amazon warehouse, worker Gabby tried her best to keep up speed while following social distance and sanitizing rules. She was reprimanded by her employer.(2) Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is using Prime Day to push cheap goods on us and expand his profit margins, and the workers are paying the price. Amazon warehouses are too crowded, and the production requirements too high, to get the job done while protecting workers from COVID-19. Last week, workers marched in front of Bezos’ house to protest the lack of PPE and ability to social distance in the warehouses, as well as the $15/hr wage they’re paid while Bezos makes millions per hour and has increased his wealth by $73 billion since the pandemic began.(3) But as long as we keep using Amazon at the rate we are now, things will never change for the better. We must be proactive with our buying power to stand up for worker rights. That’s why we’re asking everyone possible to boycott Amazon on Prime Day, and then again on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so that Bezos is hit in his own wallet and realizes he has to stop putting profits over people. Please support your local businesses and workers, instead. Share Courage California's post on Facebook and tell you friends and family: No Prime Day! For workers everywhere, Angela, along with Annie, Caitlin, Deepthi, Gabby, Irene, Jay, Lindsay, Molly, Raquel, and Scottie (the Courage team) Footnotes:  |
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