Top 6 Amazon #CyberMonday Prime deals.
6. Amazon, the second wealthiest company in the US, bends our local and federal governments to gift itself an astonishing $4.2 billion in public subsidies!
Amazon paid an effective 4.3% corporate tax from 2018–2020, including -1.2% in 2018 (yes, negative). Jeff Bezos paid a true tax rate of 0.98% between 2014 and 2018. And when they take these subsidies, they build warehouses that drive down local wages, reduce job quality, and introduce massive amounts of new pollution.
Sign up for more at Athena coalition member Good Jobs First.
5. Amazon has over 2,000 contracts with local police departments — providing them with massive opportunity for warrantless surveillance and us with further criminalization of Black and Brown communities.
Take action at Athena Coalition members Fight For The Future, MediaJustice, Free Press Action and MPower Change at End Ring Partnerships.
4. Amazon is being sued by families across 8 states for secretly recording children’s voices with Alexa.
In addition to compiling recordings of our children’s voices, refusing to let us delete information linked to our children, letting strangers talk to our children, putting 7 million Twitch creators at risk Amazon sends our children dangerous products, including an “Amazon Choice” toy with 411 times the legal limit for lead.
Join Athena Coalition members Fight For The Future, MediaJustice, Demand Progress, MPower Change to fight for our privacy.
3. Amazon used to prey on and kill small businesses. Until Amazon figured out they can prey on and steal from small businesses before killing them.
Amazon spies on businesses forced to use its platform to survive by learning from customer behavior, copying innovations from independent businesses to make low quality knock offs, and then using its algorithm to preference their own items over their “partners” who must pay for Amazon ads to compete with Amazon products. There are even online support groups where Amazon merchants teach each other how to protect themselves from Amazon.
If you’re an independent business being preyed on by Amazon, join Athena coalition member Small Business Rising.
2. Amazon is facing unprecedented bipartisan antitrust actions by the US Congress and the European Union.
Antitrust action to hold Amazon accountable for its abuses and break it up are supported by the majority of Americans. Instead of pulling back their abuses amid damning testimonies, whistleblowers and investigations, Amazon is sending lobbyists to Congress to pretend to represent ordinary Americans to say the opposite.
Tell your Member of Congress what you really think by sending them a letter, a tweet or call.
1. It is now more dangerous working at an Amazon warehouse than working in a coal mine.
Amazon workers are routinely fired by bots if they don’t continue working at a speed that made their warehouses infamous for injuries at twice the rate of other warehouses. They’re fired for demanding pandemic safety, spied on to break up worker organizing (even using heat maps), and have had their wages stolen as drivers, and even as they took their earned paid leave during COVID-19.
Athena coalition members in California recently won legislation to curtail this, and you can support the national effort by adding your name.
To continue to receive Amazon deals, join us at AthenaForAll.org and follow us at Athena Coalition.
