Amazon, AP (2/2/21) reported, “has gone far beyond selling paperbacks. It now produces movies, makes sofas, owns a grocery chain and even has plans to send satellites into space to beam internet service to earth.”
Papers across the country carried the news that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is stepping away from the CEO role. Readers of stories like AP‘s February 2 report heard once again the story of how Bezos, having “quickly determined that an online bookstore would resonate with consumers,” took that idea and “built it into a shopping and entertainment behemoth,” how what started in a Seattle garage is now one of the world’s most valuable companies, “worth” some $1.7 trillion, “swelling” Bezos’ own riches along the way. We learned that Bezos will soon have more time for “side projects,” one of which is, you know, the Washington Post.
There’s a mention toward the end of “calls for greater regulation,” but you can read this story with a magnifying glass and find not a hint of the concurrent major news story: that the Federal Trade Commission had to force Amazon to pay some $62 million for stealing tips from their delivery drivers, nearly a third of their tips over a two-year period, according to FTC chair Rohit Chopra.
As reported in Vice (2/2/21) and elsewhere, Amazon advertised that independent contractors who deliver packages in its Flex program would receive—no, not healthcare or sick pay, don’t talk crazy—but “100% of the tips” they earned, on top of an $18 to $25 hourly rate. But right away, the FTC found, Amazon “quietly changed course,” slashing payments to drivers and cutting into their tips to make it appear as if though it was still paying the promised hourly rate. Drivers who complained? Got cookie-cutter emails falsely claiming they were still paying 100% of tips, right up until Amazon learned the FTC was onto them.
Media reported the story—though, as Alan MacLeod noted at Mint Press News (2/3/21), headlines talked about “allegations,” when the story is about an FTC ruling, and about Amazon “withholding” tips, when what they did was steal them. Media reported the story; but by making wage theft and deception—besides Amazon‘s tax avoidance, dangerous workplaces and union busting—a separate story on a separate page from that of Wonderboy Bezos and the Company That Could, corporate media are going out of their way to protect the narrative of the “self-made” magnate, his ungodly profits earnestly come by, and to resist what might be the natural tendency of readers to put what Jeff Bezos calls his “Amazon winnings” in the context of broader societal costs.
Featured image: Mint Press News
It’s not the money
It’s the [lack of] principle
As an extreme Lefty, but still with a functioning brain …
all the attacks and insults directed at Jeff Bezos are
miscalculated and misguided. Amazon and Bezos have
done more for America than any other corporation I
can think of, and the money he supposedly has is always
quoted to tweak the jealousy of readers, but it is in
Amazon stock, it is not like gold in Scrooge McDuck’s
vault.
The issues of wages, benefits, tips, etc are all political
issues and are not properly described by hissed at Jeff
Bezos but should be addressed by intelligent reporting
and descriptions of the truth, not these petty whinges
about JB.
This kind of rhetoric is to the Left as the QAnon rhetoric
is to the Right, and we on the Left should be ashamed of
it, the opposite of what Republicans are with QAnon or
Nazis or KKK. The Left needs to jettison its dependence
on idiots and the under education just like the Right does.
This is a familiar arguing trick. You spend about one sentence pretending to generally ‘agree’. After you follow with three paragraphs of everything you disagree with in the story, which was just about everything.
I’m guessing the need for your ‘give a concession, get a concession’ tactic is your arguments being completely empty and unconvincing.
As an extreme Righty, but still with a functioning brain, I believe in health care as a human right, and the end of rentier capitalism.
Damn. I must be on the extreme Righty as well. Some representative democracy that includes some actual democracy would be nice too.
To “BruceK” :
Here’s what an actual “Leftist” says about someone like Bezos; whose opportunistic, unrepentant theft and exploitation of the fruits of Amazon’s workforce labor is finally starting to be acknowledged:
“I am opposing a social order in which it is possible for one man who does absolutely nothing that is useful to amass millions of dollars, while millions of men and women who work all the days of their lives secure barely enough for a wretched existence.”
– Eugene V. Debs
Then you said:
”Amazon and Bezos have done more for America than any other corporation.”
Not true.
The United States Postal Service beats the shit out of Amazon’s greedy pathetic model, and does it without turning a profit. Bezos can only dream of being as relevant and beloved of an institution as the USPS (which has 200,000 of its workers unionized).
NO ONE is worth billions of dollars unless they EARN it THEMSELVES. Sports stars, artists, singers, surgons & others who do the WORK THEMSELVES should have low taxes, those who hire people to do the work need much higher taxes.
Too many of these corporate billionairs make BILLIONS off the sweat of their workers, like the owners of Wallmarrt for one, then they turn around & deny them a decent wage, too many end up on food stamps & welfare, force them to work part time, deny them health care & pensions & suck too much of the profit out of the company.
TAX THEM, MAKE IT HURT until they treat their employees fairly.
Your first sentence here contradicts the rest of your message. Bezos is worth billions but did not do it by himself.
To Sheila Chambers,
Greed is greed, ALL of the wealthy (no matter their vocation) need to pay up! All of them are benefactors of an army of support workers who make it possible for those highly paid high profile workers to do their thing.
No celebrity, elite athlete or surgeon, is an “islands unto themselves.” None of their jobs deserve to be let off the hook when it comes to paying a fair share of taxes, and a fair and equitable proportion of the money they produce, to be distributed amongst all of those who supported the high profile earner.
There is not a single millionaire or billionaire who EARNS IT BY THEMSELVES.
No sports star, celebrity or surgeon does their job without others working along side and behind-the-scenes, in some supporting capacity.
Think of all the jobs such as wardrobe consultants, tour managers, public relations personnel, support technicians, anesthesiologists, support Nursing Staff, promoting agents, advertising agents, contracting and booking agents, athletic and vocational training experts, management firms, financial advisors, etc., etc.
Some ideas seem too good to be true, and so I have resisted using facebook, as I do believe in privacy. I have read too that Amazon takes new product people in to advertise and then Amazon comes up with something similar–but less expensive. Killing off rivals rather quickly And the work conditions are horrible—Simon Legree in the 21st century.
Walmart does not pay workers fairly either. Walmart tried to move into my city— by experimenting with a grocery. The people said no—and Walmart had to close down as the town was on to their sneaky ways.
Nothing can surprise me about Amazon. Absolutely nothing. What would Bezos not Steal??