Why I Don’t Support Amazon.
Not the rainforest. The rainforest is great and pivotal to our survival. No I’m talking about the giant, online corporation that doesn’t pay it’s taxes or support it’s workers. A lot of people still use Amazon - why is that? And what are the alternatives that we should be looking at?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think Amazon should be completely shut down, because that would mean thousands upon thousands of job losses and I’m not about my fellow human beings having to go through something like that, but Amazon do need to change their tune and look out for their employees and the planet - so I see no harm in boycotting a company in order to push them to reconsider their ways. I try not to support any big business, because most of the time there will be one person (often a white man) at the top of the ladder, reaping the rewards of other people’s hard labour. Employees struggle to make ends meet on zero hour contracts, long shifts and no breaks. I will not turn a blind eye to the mistreatment of other human beings. Everyone deserves security and safety at their workplace, but Amazon have seemingly shown time and time again that they do not care about their workers.
Back in 2018 VICE published an article stating that over the course of three years, ambulances had been called to Amazon warehouses in the UK over 600 times. You might be thinking, ‘Okay, but accidents can happen anywhere!’ Or, ‘But all large companies must have call outs similar to this.’ But for comparison: ‘Between 2015 and 2017, ambulances were called 115 times to Amazon’s warehouse in Rugeley, Staffordshire. Over the same period, paramedics attended a Tesco warehouse of the same size in nearby Lichfield on 8 occasions.’ 115 and 8. There’s a big difference between those two numbers. In the article staff talk about the fear of losing their job if they called in sick or took a toilet break. There were even reports of pregnant women having miscarriages on shift due to strenuous tasks they had to perform. This was originally investigated by the Sunday Times, but there are a number of news articles on this topic if you want to look into it further.
On top of this, we know that Amazon seems to have an issue (like many other big businesses) with paying their income tax or federal tax. Now there is some contradiction here when it comes to articles I’ve read. Some have said they paid none, some have said they paid more than enough. Others have said they’ve paid the tax, and then received the money back in a rebate. There’s some great articles on INC. which has a lot of sources linked. In one article they state: ‘The report finds that in 2018, 60 of America's biggest corporations zeroed out their federal income taxes on $79 billion in U.S. pretax income... Instead of paying $16.4 billion in taxes at the 21 percent statutory corporate tax rate, these companies enjoyed a net corporate tax rebate of $4.3 billion.’
So should we support a company that doesn’t pay tax and doesn’t support it’s workers? Long story short, no. I don’t think we should. We live in a world where if we have to wait for something for more than a day, that’s already one day too long. Everyone wants everything instantly. There’s a book you want? No problem, it’ll arrive the next day with Amazon prime! More and more I feel like the film Wall-E is becoming a reality. We’re too lazy to go to the shops. Too impatient to wait. Too unsympathetic to care about the workers. This needs to change.
For me, now when I want to buy something, I try to find a shop in my area that is selling it. I’ll go for a small, independent business. If I can’t find that in my immediate area, then I’ll search online but again, I’ll search for a small, independent business. (Small, independent business are clearly the key words of this blog! Say it with me now! Small. Independent.) Where I know every worker in the chain is supported and looked after. Where transparency is paramount. I’ve shared a few (UK) online shops before where you can find most items, but I’m more than happy to share them again because I just love them so much: Plastic Freedom, The Kind Store, Know The Origin.
We need to stand together against big corporations like Amazon. Who do as little as possible for the people while focusing on their own selfish greed. We cannot stand by and let people be taken advantage of.
“We are not robots. We are human beings. We cannot come into work after only four hours of sleep and be expected to be fully energized and ready to work. That’s impossible. I feel like all the company cares about is getting their products out to the customers as quickly humanly as possible, no matter what that means for us workers in the end.”
Until next time,
The Sustainable Swap.
