Amazon's paying new hires $3000 bonuses.
But the people who have been working for them during the pandemic?
20,000 of whom have gotten COVID?
Those employees got a turkey voucher.

Amazon’s $3,000 Signing Bonuses Irk Workers Who Got $10 Coupons

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/amazon-s-3-000-signing-bonuses-irk-workers-who-got-10-coupons
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business/amazon-s-3-000-signing-bonuses-irk-workers-who-got-10-coupons

Oh and don't forget Bezos could give every single Amazon employee $105,000 and be as wealth as he was before the pandemic began. Instead he's increased his personal wealth by $70,070,000,000. But, hey, turkey vouchers!

@2, let it go

this just in:
Covid Overload: U.S. Hospitals Are Running Out of Beds for Patients

As the pandemic surges across the country, hospitals are facing a crisis-level shortage of beds and staff to provide adequate care for patients.

In excruciating pain with lesions on her face and scalp, Tracey Fine lay for 13 hours on a gurney in an emergency room hallway.

All around her, Covid-19 patients filled the beds of the hospital in Madison, Wis. Her nurse was so harried that she could not remember Ms. Fine’s condition, and the staff was slow to bring her pain medicine or food.

In a small rural hospital in Missouri, Shain Zundel’s severe headache turned out to be a brain abscess. His condition would typically have required an operation within a few hours, but he was forced to wait a day while doctors struggled to find a neurosurgeon and a bed — finally at a hospital 375 miles away in Iowa. By Reed Abelson; Nov. 27, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/27/health/covid-hospitals-overload.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

Mask Up
SIX Fucking FEET
& wash your handsies

also WHY r u even here
equivocuss?

Every Slog AM and PM should work in a reference to Charles's brilliant piece on Amy Covid Barrett's exploitative adoption of Black orphans to deflect from her own racism.

one peron with enough CA$H
to overturn Elections whilst a
million are homeless frightens
our Brave little jakkky none at all...

@6: God doesn't need capital to finance divine expenditures.

And the Dow cracked 30,000 this week, in anticipation of the orange nutjob leaving the White House!

We've got just a hair less than twice as many covid deaths as the 2nd highest ranked country by that metric, despite having over a billion less people than that country, and a far higher standard of living with a more robust health care system. Shit's wild!

@9:, see @13... Probably helps with deliusions and stupidity, too.

Trump keeps trying to steal the election behind his fabricated victimization narrative? Keep pummeling his arguments and fraudulence at every step. Defeat him in the courts; defeat him in the media; defeat him by totally, unswervingly opposing him and his enablers. He respects nothing but strength and victory. Okay: show him unyielding strength against him and emerge victorious. And don't forget the complicit silence of most of the Republican Party leadership. A minority showed some spine--some of the judges tossing cases, some local party officials voting to certify, a few elected officials like Larry Hogan and Mitt Romney--but most followed Mitch McConnell's contemptible lead and remained strategically quiet. Shame on them forever.

@10:

And Bezos doesn't need $186,000,000,000 no matter what you or anyone else says; no single human being NEEDS that much wealth.

not to worry COMTE
equivocuss will
Find a way.

@17

I was calling them Karen. Anyway, I'm starting to think they are the stupidest motherfucker on the planet. But I think that title was already taken by a presumably long departed poster. So maybe we can just call them the stupidest asshole on the planet.

@16: Of course not, but you enjoy the wealth that you don't need as well.

@18 -- I Rest my case.

@20: The defense rests.

@19:

Enjoy? How? He cannot spend that in his entire lifetime. There is nothing he can buy, nothing he can own - including entire countries - that are worth that much money. The ONLY thing one can do with that obscene amount of wealth is use it to generate even more wealth. There's nothing enjoyable about that, unless one is a complete sociopath who believes such unbridled accumulation for its own sake at the expense of millions, if not billions of other human beings whose collective existence would be immeasurably improved with the merest fraction of a fraction of a fraction of his accumulation, is somehow morally, ethically and intellectually justifiable.

@23: You forgot mega-philanthropic ventures. But unlike Bill and Melinda, Bezos is not in that mold. Maybe he'll change.

I remember when Republican types would make some effort to concoct elaborate arguments for how grotesque wealth disparity actually benefited society. A lost art, it seems. I blame our institutions of higher learning - too much emphasis on STEM and neglect of the humanities.

@6, @22 @25, @26, @27 jackoff and @9 Doofy: Run along, lil MAGAs, before you draw more of Pence's flies.

@11 pat L: Interesting how even the Billionaires want Trumpty Dumpty gone. Methinks Reason # 1 is that they're well aware that everything Trumpty Dumpty touches turns to shit. DJT is no Midas.

@16 COMTE: Nailed it for the WIN!

@xina, COMTE, pat L, kristofarian, Alden, blip, ignorauns---BRAVO! Agreed and seconded.

@18: Were you not around during the days of Fnarf's epic takedowns of Supreme Ruler of the Universe/John Bailo, the previous owner of that title (bequeathed by Fnarf)? He'd dunk on him and Will in Seattle both, and not have to leave his bubble bath.

@26:

"Devastated my life"? No, because I realized after working at AMZN for just a few days back in the late '90's that it was exactly the sort of rigidly hierarchical, exploitive, soul-sucking corporation with which I had absolutely no interest in being associated, and I got out before the ink was barely dry on my employment contract. Fortunately, that was still a relatively easy thing to do back then, and I've never regretted that decision for even an instant.

As for what Bezos does or doesn't do with his vast accumulation of wealth, well it should be EVERYONE'S business, because, when you're richer than King Midas, the Pharaohs, and the Catholic Church combined, you have the power to affect the lives of nearly every living thing on the planet. At least Gates is attempting to use his billions to do some good, but so far as I can see Bezos is only interested in doing whatever keeps him at the pinnacle of the "most obscenely wealthy person in the entirety of human history" pyramid, and I suspect he won't be satisfied until he knocks Jakob Fugger, John D. Rockefeller, Mansa Musa, and Andrew Carnegie (all with estimated net worth of between $300 and $400 B in 2019 dollars) out of the top position.

Well if its everyone's business, then its my business too, so here is what I think he should do with his money-
Sponsor a professional cycling team to compete with the Ineos Grenadiers- they just have too much money and they are stockpiling too much talent- it just isn't fair dammit.
Then he should revive the Tour of California and then start a stage race in Washington and B.C- the Cascade Classic.
Well, a guy can dream, can't he?

If the last four years have taught us anything, it’s that inherited wealth breeds idiots. Bezos et all should be taxed at 97% over all earnings over one million dollars, and upon his death, all assets over one million should revert to the government.

And xina dear, while I am in agreement with you about the plight of the workers, maybe it’s time for those workers to rise up.

Trump whining on the TEE VEE this morning (read about, did not watch it) about 'WHAT KIND OF JUSTICE SYSTEM IS THIS' (because he's losing all of his baseless lawsuits because there is no voter fraud and despite all of the rigging he did to win the election he still lost). Apparently he doesn't know that the last judgement, dismissed with prejudice, by one of his very own judicial appointees. What kind of justice system is this? One that for the moment has not been so thoroughly corrupted that it's going to hand you what you want, that's what kind of justice system this is. FFS I cannot wait until he is out of our lives. I cannot wait until he is rotting in prison. I cannot wait until he is a rotting fucking corpse.

"Also, Mr. Trump is indeed our President, and should be treated with a modicum of respect... " @--libbbnv

well ya gotta Give
it to Get it - unless
you Believe in the Office (so
Much) that trumpfy can Never ever do no Wrong.

trumpfy's Never been about Merit:
he oughtta be treated with the same 'respect'
he gave to our Military -- fucking Disrespect but
from a Cadet* Bonespurs, whatever else might one Expect?

*too Rich to serve the sonovabitch WAS a Fortunate Son
and when The Band plays 'Hail to the Chief' -- Oooh
trumpf's pointin' that Canon at YOU-woowoowoooo.

pucker up.

@34: "Bezos et all should be taxed at 97% over all earnings over one million dollars"

I think you mean over one billion dollars, otherwise the Vel-DuRay estate is in for some rude awakenings.

Congrats on being so Rich, Catalina!

& thank you, again, equivocuss
for keeping us up-to-date.

Raindrop dear, you are greatly exaggerating what qaa as city employees make.

Why are Republicans so bad at math?

Billionaires are a blight on humanity. Period. On our health on our quality of life and our environment. It is our business what they do and throwing us a few crumbs won't work. The rise in housing since Amazon inserted itself here is just one example. This causes poverty which includes homelessness.

That people have to sell their labor just to barely live is a crime.

This is an economy that does not work for billions.

Ah yes, the workers not rising up is TOTALLY the problem in this society. They have only themselves to blame for how they are treated and mistreated. I forgot!

Americans do not walk out of their workplaces en masse. They are too frightened to do so. The few who have chosen to do so are typically fired or their lives are made so miserable they are forced to quit to literally save their own lives (mentally and physically).

The TRILLIONS of dollars spent by corporations annually lobbying policy makers and terrorizing their employees with anti-union propaganda has nothing to do with it. I mean even in McConnell's fantasy football second stimulus package (which will never happen) the legislation of utmost importance in that bill was making sure that corporations could not be held accountable in any way, shape, or form for their employees getting sick or dying from COVID when being forced to work (and especially if they are forced to work while knowing they have been exposed to or even tested positive for COVID). Doctors and nurses were threatened if they reported on their workplaces having no PPE, forcing them to reuse PPE, forcing them to work while sick, etc. Even during a worldwide pandemic the only thing that matters is the profit margin. Period. Full stop. And Amazon, Wal*Mart, McDonalds and many many others use taxpayer dollars (food stamps, Medicaid, and other social safety nets that people who work full time should NOT FUCKING NEED) to pad their obscene profits. They even give presentations to their employees on how to apply for such aid.

Fucking slackers in this country. They deserve what they get, don't they? No matter how many jobs they have to work just to make rent (because there is not ONE STATE in this entire so-called great nation where someone earning minimum wage can afford the rent on an apartment, NOT ONE STATE).

I mean it's totally irrelevant that Amazon fires people all of the time - for getting sick, for getting pregnant, for needing time off to care for a sick family member, for having a life outside of the company they have chosen to work for, for not filing the shipping boxes fast enough, for spending 30 seconds too long in the bathroom, for wanting to be paid for the time they wait to go through security that treats them like they're entering and/or leaving a prison every day, for attempting to organize, for organizing, for speaking out about how Amazon treats their employees, for decrying working conditions where people have gotten sick and/or died (of heat stroke, of COVID, of a heart attack, etc.) Shit, they've even fired people for being in the process of dying! People have sued and no one has ever successfully won a wrongfully terminated lawsuit against Amazon. Most recently Amazon fired employees who organized walkouts against working conditions that exposed them to COVID.

Amazon makes it clear to all employees that they have a flank of high powered, high paid lawyers willing to take you on anytime, anywhere.

When I got sick at Amazon and was mis(diagnosed) with MS, I was told by my teenage manager (who had never managed anyone before and micromanaged me to death) to quit my job. I refused, as my job was getting done just fine (never had a bad performance review). When I refused to quit, i was PIP'd (which is what they do - give you a "performance improvement plan and 90 days to complete it - which you cannot, no one can - so when you fail, you are fired for not improving your performance >>> even if people in managerial positions held the opinion that your performance was not a problem >>> and then they fire you.

And the piece de resistance? They give you paperwork to sign at your firing event, saying they'll give you a month's pay if you don't sue them. And then they perp walk you out of the building, like they have the nuclear launch codes and you might go rogue. Of course when you are seriously ill and believe you might die, you sign that paperwork, don't you? Yes, yes you do. And you probably sign it even if you aren't sick and believe you are going to die because suing them will only make you sick and want to die.

The only Amazon employees ever to successfully organize and unionize are Somalian immigrants working for Amazon in Minnesota and that's because Amazon couldn't get enough other people to do the work, so they gave in.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/technology/amazon-somali-workers-minnesota.html

Long before I ever dreamed of moving to Seattle or got a job working at Amazon (my last job in Seattle), I lived in NYC and worked at the first flagship store of Borders, Books and Music in 5 WTC. We organized. We had daily "meetings" of 5 employees at a time with upper echelon management about the evils of unions. We were subjected to an unimaginable reign of terror in or order to prevent a union coming in - and yet we did unionize. I sat at the bargaining table. Borders did NOT bargain in good faith and the only thing we got by organizing and forming a union, was representation and union fees. Nothing else. Not one thing. Since the going hourly rate at that store at the time (1997) was $6.50 an hour (in NYC!!! where you pay federal, state, and city taxes and the only way to make rent was to have 3 roommates, which I did), the union fees ate into an already far below poverty level paycheck. >>> And before I get big fat fucking lecture on why I didn't get another job, at that time, before I was hired by Borders in 1996, I applied for over 150 jobs. I live in NJ in a friend's house where I didn't have to pay rent. I interviewed and interviewed and interviewed. My full time job was finding a job. This was in the Gen X recession (I know, Milliennials and Gen Y or is it Z? think they own the "our life sucks we have a college education and can't get a job" market, but they're wrong).

Less than a year later (I had already moved on to another job, an office job) the union was voted out by employees. (Borders also fired all of the management at that store AND blackballed every single person who worked in that store from every being able to work in another Borders store, ever, yes there was an actual list with everyone's name on it).

Borders went out of business so now it seems irrelevant, but it's not. It's the story of every company without a union and every company that claims "right to work" which really means "right to fire at will for no reason at all." It is the story of almost every employee in this country.

I made more at Barnes and Noble in 2002 when I first moved to Seattle and had no job and was hired as holiday help - $7.50 an hour, so I made $1000/mo and my rent was $650 a month at the time and for four years, oh and I lived alone).

Now minimum wage in Seattle won't get you an apartment where you can live alone unless you choose a dorm style apodment where you share kitchens (and sometimes bathrooms!) but hey you get your own bed and a room slightly larger than a prison cell.

The defense of this system we have going on here, is reprehensible. On all fronts. And in a country where the 1% could literally solve all of the problems of poverty in this country and STILL be wealthier than the rest of the entire world, makes this country the biggest, most shameful shit hole on the face of the earth.

Xina dear, tl;dr. Enjoy wallowing in your piousness. I'll just quietly murmur that previous generations figured this out. Maybe this generation does too?

Oops, that last sentence should read "Maybe this generation needs to figure it out also"

You clearly do not now what piousness means.

@44: Honey, when Catalina Vel-DuRay calls you pious, you're pious.

Xina, Webster's 4b definition of pious , "marked by self-conscious virtue" has you written all over it.

So let's look at this.....

The workers who walked out in the Seattle General Strike had no safety net.

The UAW workers who locked themselves in the factories had no safety net.

The IBEW workers (of which my Grandfather was one) who rose up in unity to demand decent pay and safety measures had no safety net.

The Pullman Porters, who spread the word of civil rights throughout the south, especially had no safety net.

The AT&T workers in the 1947 strike (of which Mother Vel-DuRay was one), had only a limited safety net, and since they were mostly women, they didn't really have access to a lot of that.

If you were to go to downtown Seattle - or any American City - from the 1950's to the 70's, you would find that all the major stores and hotels were union. Every movie theatre projectionist had to have a union card, as did every musician who played in the theatres, stores, restaurants, and hotels. Lots of office workers were unionized as well.

Even as late as 1980, when Four Seasons reopened The Olympic Hotel, they agreed to pay a higher wage and agree to arbitration in exchange for not having an employee union, as they had had when Westin was operating it.

What happened?

People got comfortable. They thought they didn't need things like unions or pensions anymore. They bought into the hype of the 401k. They were "self sufficient". It was hip to be square - and then the consolidations began.

The workers themselves abandoned collective bargaining, and it falls to this generation to reestablish those rights. If they have the fortitude to do it. That may vex you, but that is the truth.

the Kochs and ALEC et al made sure Unions went the way of the dinosaur
from what, 1/3 of the American Workforce, union-employed, with paid vacations and paid Medical, second homes and single-income households -- all those well-paying Union Jobs just vanished offshore thanks to corporate-sponsored Elections and PACs and damn fine Legwork by repubs, saving Capital what, Trillions in wages; anyway from 1/3 unionized to about 7% now, a large part of that, the USPS which repubs are so Desperately trying to Dismantle in their fight to kill all unions in America. and all those other good wage jobs -- non-union, but union inspired wages -- they're prety much gone too.

so yeah, kids these days gotta either Unionize or Collectivize -- unbridled winner-take-all Capitalism is hell on a Social Safety Net. not to mention: Pandemic.

this just in from the nyt:
Biden Fractures Foot Playing With His Dog, Putting Him in a Boot

The president-elect visited an orthopedic specialist, and while initial X-rays did not show an obvious fracture, a more detailed CT scan showed hairline cracks.

President Trump, who has refused to concede to Mr. Biden, reposted on Twitter an NBC News video of Mr. Biden leaving the doctor’s office on Sunday, and added, “Get well soon!”

Mr. Trump had no pet during his four years in the White House.

[unless you count Pence].

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/29/us/politics/biden-foot-boot.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

hey, eaze up a little there Uncle Joe
you Gotta make it til at Least the 20th – of January!
or (maybe?) el Marmalade takes it all…

The Rise and Fall of Labor Unions In The U.S.
From the 1830s until 2012 (but mostly the 1930s-1980s)
https://whorulesamerica.ucsc.edu/power/history_of_labor_unions.html

Why Are Workers Struggling? Because Labor Law Is Broken
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/19/magazine/labor-law-unions.html

The Secret White House memo: Inside Trump’s plan to destroy unions
A leaked White House memo, first reported by the New York Times and later obtained by POLITICO, outlines President Trump’s plans to destroy public and private-sector unions, get rid of worker protections, cripple workers’ ability to organize, and increase profits for corporate special interests.
https://labortribune.com/the-secret-white-house-memo-inside-trumps-plan-to-destroy-unions/

Why the Republican Party Wants to Destroy Labor Unions
The GOP sees unions and their supporters as enemies to be politically and economically destroyed.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/10/23/why-republican-party-wants-destroy-labor-unions

How the American Worker Got Fleeced
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-the-fleecing-of-the-american-worker/

thnx
for the Sources
xina!

It used to be that companies would pay better wages and provide better benefits because they were afraid of unionization, but even in my heavily unionized industry, there are many union members who support the union, but vote Republican. Why? Because they got theirs. Never mind that it is the union who allowed for that. (See also the police unions)

A few years back the Seattle Sheraton had a vote on whether to unionize. It would have been a good deal for the employees, particularly now since the you-know-what has hit the fan (The hotel union's dues are next to nothing, but a contract would have allowed for Marriott - which basically owns everything now - to pay out severance). But it was rejected soundly, because the employees were afraid of the implications of collective bargaining.

You can navel gaze, and bloviate, and blame outsourcing or those mean old Koch brothers until the cows come home, but until the American worker wakes up and does something - at which point the complacent corporate class will poop their pants, because they've never had to deal with that - the status quo will be the status quo.

Until then, they play us - Boeing knows that they can get yokels in the south to vote against unionization. Amazon knows that they won't get people to stand up for themselves.

But who knows? Maybe the trump depression will finally raise some hackles.

"Maybe the trump depression will finally raise some hackles."

Yep.
and here's to raising them.

@46 & @50- thank you for the excellent historical context Catalina.
Personally, I despair for the future of workers organizing in what remains of my lifetime - the growth of West Coast unionization took place against a very different backdrop both economically, politically, legally & socially.
Also, as a proud life-long union member & retired Teamster member, I have to point out - there was a dark side to "Beckism" that has been somewhat cleansed by time... there were repercussions for crossing picket lines or refusing to allow union access ... not for nothing was there a close association of certain unions with organized crime, there could be 'muscle' involved. The stories are more than apocryphal.

One of our greatest presidents was the head of a labor union.

@53 -- right.
and then he Glutted
our Middle Class
whatta Hero

Oh my, kallipugos dear. There certainly was - and still is - a culture of violence in certain organized labor environments. That's one of the things that still plagues the police unions. I know person who was a police officer who was forced out of law enforcement because she want against the union and spoke up about problems within the force - at which point her employer fired her. No police force would touch her after that.

But sadly, the emphasis has always been on the flaws in organized labor instead of the crimes of the employers.

And to be honest, unions tend to cripple themselves by not being able to think outside the box when it comes to issues like merit pay and flexible work arrangements.

with so damn few on Our Side and so many monopolistic or duopololistic Corps (see: big oil, big pharma, cableteevee or RNC/DNC eg, etc) harvesting us for . . . whatever/Everything they can, perhaps we the peeps need to think outside the Box and Infuckingcorporate so that We, too might Write The Rules.

we Do outnumber them
by about 90 - 1.

So workers are the problem for not organizing, but unions are bad so we don't want unions. And corporations are not to blame in any way shape or form for who workers are exploited and taxpayers are used to supplement their profit margins. And don't forget corporations should never have to pay taxes or be held accountable to the communities in which they exist or to the peopel who do all of their labor. Makes total sense. (excuses me while I eyeroll myself into another dimension). It's no wonder this country is so fucked.

@58 - That’s not what Catalina meant.

xina dear, how tedious it must be to live such an overwrought life. You really should buy some Enya albums or a salt lamp or something.

Since you seem to be content on being the perpetual victim/moral scold, I'll leave you to your catechism. But should you ever decide to have a new hobby, may I suggest history?