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News & ArtsMonday, April 2, 2012
Teh Internets Attention, Amazon Employees:
Posted by Dominic Holden on Mon, Apr 2, 2012 at 12:54 PM
Out of all the major corporations in Seattle, your company is the worst at giving back to the community. Check out Amy Martinez and Kristi Heim's excellent feature in the Seattle Times that adds tons of depth and detail to a deservedly snarky headline: "The world's biggest online retailer is a minor player—at best—in local charitable giving."
Your CEO, Jeff Bezos, refused interviews and "questions philanthropy," Martinez and Heim explain. Meanwhile, other local companies are leaders and Amazon has been a tax-dodger. But let's be fair: Your CEO doesn't always shy away from civic giving. For instance, when the cause was a political campaign to stop an income tax on super wealthy people (folks like him) that would fund basic education for the general public (folks like his employees) Bezos flashed the cash.
Amazon employees should be furious. You should demand that your profitable company provide meaningful support the very community that fosters Amazon's business (not just token donations here and there). You should call for an executive who isn't trying to shit on public education. You should speak out against Amazon's deplorable warehouse conditions. And you should expect your company—like so many other successful companies in Seattle—to advocate for the same basic values of its employees. Amazon is a big boy and needs to stop acting like a greedy child.
1
Whatever ones opinions of Amazon may be, going after its employees like this is unsettling and unsavory.
2
I really doubt Amazon is ever going to grow up as long as that Randian man-child remains at the helm, and no amount of preaching is going to convince somebody who's already sold himself on something as pathological as Objectivism.
3
@1) Don't misread this post. I'm not going after the employees, Phoebe. The employees are, on the whole, responsible and progressive members of their community who give plenty. They should expect the same from the company that profits from their toil.
4
Yes, because the employees can TOTALLY unseat the founder of the company.
Not that Bezos isn't wrong...but, people need to work, and generally won't be able to unseat somebody who probably has a more-than-controlling share of the company. Let's be realistic Dominic.
Not that Bezos isn't wrong...but, people need to work, and generally won't be able to unseat somebody who probably has a more-than-controlling share of the company. Let's be realistic Dominic.
6
Why should Amazon change its ways when they've had such success and profit by being greedy and uncharitable?
It doesn't matter how many times you tell people the places they shop (e.g., Amazon, Walmart, etc.) are selfish and destructive - they don't give a shit. They don't care about anything except dirt cheap prices. No matter what.
It doesn't matter how many times you tell people the places they shop (e.g., Amazon, Walmart, etc.) are selfish and destructive - they don't give a shit. They don't care about anything except dirt cheap prices. No matter what.
8
You could just tax the corporations like we should be doing in the first place. That would be the best way of making sure they contribute their fair share to society. But I keep forgetting, we can't do that in America.
9
@3 So what is your suggestion on how to express this to Amazon?
There is push from within to give more to the community, but I'm asking for specific examples of how you think a solitary employee should tell its employer that they should change one of the fundamental values of company (frugality) and also that the person who created and runs the company is wrong about their personal beliefs on education?
There is push from within to give more to the community, but I'm asking for specific examples of how you think a solitary employee should tell its employer that they should change one of the fundamental values of company (frugality) and also that the person who created and runs the company is wrong about their personal beliefs on education?
10
@3: You are going after them Dominic. You're insulting their CEO and the respect and admiration they may or may not have for him which affects employee morale. That may be your prerogative in going after the story, but I object to the tone of it. But I am an old prude, so you can take that into consideration.
11
@10 and just about everyone, this is completely backwards. If you really believe that every consenting adult employee can, and should value corporate ethics (ie morale) over the social climate around them. This is so misanthropic that it's disturbing, to be honest. Workplace values and personal profits really shouldn't trump working together to improve education or protecting the poor. I guess no one ever studied the progressive reforms at the beginning of the 20th century.
12
Yeah, but what mechanism is available to them to make these demands and issue these expectations? I agree that Bezos is not doing the right thing by this community, but how exactly is your average warehouse worker supposed to address that?
13
I dunno exactly but there are tons of ways to organize, and if it really matters to the warehouse workers they could, in theory, start a grassroots movement among the employees, which could, also in theory, move outside of the warehouses, or to many of the shareholders, whose opinions could also be swayed? It just makes no sense to roll over and die over every social change because you're too small to make a difference, it's actually really pathetic that the general consensus feeling is like that.
14
You do understand that in most companies getting furious at the execs and expressing it is often a great way to get fired right? Especially since 90% of employees are easily replaceable in this economy.
I certainly do not fault Amazon employees for not sacrificing their livelihood over the charitable practices of their employer. I sure as fuck wouldn't.
I certainly do not fault Amazon employees for not sacrificing their livelihood over the charitable practices of their employer. I sure as fuck wouldn't.
15
Nice idea, but no Amazon employee is going to give a fuck.
If you're waiting on the house niggers to burn down the plantation and free everyone you're gonna be a slave forever.
If you're waiting on the house niggers to burn down the plantation and free everyone you're gonna be a slave forever.
16
Since when do employee's have the power to change large corporate entities? I agree with @9. What would you suggest they do? Do you have examples of other large corporations innate philosophy being changed by their employees? The employees should "demand"? For fucks sake.
Look at Apple for comparison. It wasn't until Tim Cook took over that there started to be some significant donations (although .1% of their cash holding seems low) and matching employee donations starting last September.
Bezo's doesn't believe in charity and I imagine that until he leaves, Amazon won't either.
Look at Apple for comparison. It wasn't until Tim Cook took over that there started to be some significant donations (although .1% of their cash holding seems low) and matching employee donations starting last September.
Bezo's doesn't believe in charity and I imagine that until he leaves, Amazon won't either.
17
@12) I don't think it's the warehouse workers who will get the upper echelons' ears. I think it's the folks who work in Seattle--over 9,000 of them, in various tiers of the company--who form Amazon's corporate culture and can press leadership to stop being a civic embarrassment.
18
While I totally agree that Amazon has an abysmal record as a corporate citizen, I don't think haranguing employees will help (even upper-level employees). Bezos fully controls Amazon, and he clearly doesn't give a shit about philanthropy. He has drunk the Randian koolaid. I doubt anything will change as long as Bezos is in charge.
19
I thought Randians believed that government shouldn't be in the business of charity (ie, homeless shelters, welfare, food stamps, emergency rooms, etc) but it should be churches and other private sources of charity that do that work - who are expected to get money from the wealthy. So hypocrite, much, Bezos?
21
0.5 profit margin?
The "community" is lucky it has a freakin' job!!
There's nothing left to give.
You guys ate it all, and then took the plates.
23
corporate philanthropy is lipstick on a pig - look at the komen debacle and the companies that pinkwashed themselves. bezos is refusing to play the game every other corporation plays - buying good will & publicity with a pittance.
24
@19 A lot of them just don't think that work should be done at all. They are fine with private actors doing it because it voluntary, but they themselves often don't see a need to do it. If you're not able to support yourself well that's to bad, but they earned what they made, blah blah blah.
They are not so much hypocrites as just assholes.
They are not so much hypocrites as just assholes.
26
I have to laugh when I hear Seattlites demanding "charity" and new buildings from Amazon.
Of all the job categories that this low margin e-tailer could cut, it would probably be the overpaid corporate office wonks.
They certainly can use help in the warehouses...but more "Community Outreach Directors" and "Infrastructure Architects".
Give me a break! It's a 5 and 10 store. Woolworth's...J.C. Penny, not a Swiss Bank for chrissakes!
27
It's also kind of weird to rag on Bezos for donating 100k to thy awful anti-tax initiative but not mentioning the 10 million for MOHAI, 2 million for UW, and 15 million for Princeton.
28
if you know absolutely anything about jeff bezos you know he gives exactly zero fucks about any of this press and will never give significantly to charity.
get a clue and let people do what they want.
don't like how they do business? don't order their shit. oh yeah, you won't, cause amazon is awesome, so shut up and like it.
get a clue and let people do what they want.
don't like how they do business? don't order their shit. oh yeah, you won't, cause amazon is awesome, so shut up and like it.
29
@8 for the insightful win.
I presume you mean raising the capital gains tax rate to a full 30 percent and disallowing exemptions for people who bring in more than $1 million a year.
I presume you mean raising the capital gains tax rate to a full 30 percent and disallowing exemptions for people who bring in more than $1 million a year.
30
@27 this is true, so why are The Stranger writers jumping on the Seattle Times nuts by following up on their article? because the stranger writers have nothing better to talk about?
31
I worked for Microsoft for many years, and one of the reasons I was proud to work there was the amount of money we as a company gave each year. To our community. To local agencies and nonprofits that do *great* work for people in need.
I interviewed last year for a position at Amazon. The whole "frugality tenet" had been pounded into my head over and over by reading their website and many things written about the company. At one point, an interviewer begrudgingly bought me a Diet Coke between interviews. He made sure to spit, "This isn't Microsoft--we don't give stuff away for free." Guess what, community members who could use some help from Amazon? That includes you, too.
I interviewed last year for a position at Amazon. The whole "frugality tenet" had been pounded into my head over and over by reading their website and many things written about the company. At one point, an interviewer begrudgingly bought me a Diet Coke between interviews. He made sure to spit, "This isn't Microsoft--we don't give stuff away for free." Guess what, community members who could use some help from Amazon? That includes you, too.
32
I've never heard a single positive thing from anyone who has worked there--the corporate culture and work/life (im)balance generally been described as a hellish ordeal that people have gotten through until they quit--so it's not like the employees are having a fantastic time either.
33
Charitable giving by public companies is a corruption. If the companies have "extra" money, they should be paying their employees more or returning it to their shareholders. It would be one thing to complain about Bezos if Bezos doesn't give any of his own money to charity; it's another to complain because Bezos and other Amazon executives decline to give the money that they are looking after on behalf of other people away to charity. I'm sure it makes the execs at other companies feel real good about themselves when they get to announce large charitable contributions, but since they are actually announcing large contributions made by their employees, their customers, and their shareholders, it rather seems like they shouldn't be given a whole lot of credit. Charitable giving by corporations is a distortion of a fair tax system and yet another way in which the rich fund their interests with money that isn't really theirs.
35
This post: The reason I haven't bought anything on Amazon for years and won't even if the item is half as much. Not worth it at all.
36
Growth companies are rarely philanthropic, and comparing Amazon to mature-to-declining companies like Microsoft is ignorant. As long as the company gets more return from reinvestment, that's what they'll do. Once the return on philanthropy exceeds other available investments, it will appear.
I'm sorry to see Paul's Quixotic anti-Amazon crusade parroted by a writer who usually brings more powers of analysis and perspective to the table.
I'm sorry to see Paul's Quixotic anti-Amazon crusade parroted by a writer who usually brings more powers of analysis and perspective to the table.
37
@1, feeble-minded in Wallingford,
"..unsettling and unsavory.." perfectly describes those upper echelon Amazon employees.
Jeff Bezos, from junk bonds on Wall Street to junk book selling in Seattle.....yaaawwwnnn...
Time to go back to sleep.
"..unsettling and unsavory.." perfectly describes those upper echelon Amazon employees.
Jeff Bezos, from junk bonds on Wall Street to junk book selling in Seattle.....yaaawwwnnn...
Time to go back to sleep.
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