Black Friday Is A Day To Remember Amazon's Labor Abuses

From the United States to Bangladesh, from Germany to South Africa, Amazon will face coordinated strikes and protests today demanding that the company raises wages above inflation for all its workers and stops its union busting.

by Christy Hoffman and Nazma Akhter, Jacobin

When Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in 1994, he didn’t just open an online store out of a garage in Bellevue, Washington. He created a globe-spanning business ready to squeeze every last drop from workers, sellers, consumers, and the planet. The pandemic offered the company the chance to squeeze much more: it doubled its workforce and tripled its profits.

Amazon’s geographic expansion continues apace. In 2023, Amazon plans to enter at least five more countries: Belgium, Chile, Colombia, Nigeria, and South Africa. Even with some slowed growth in recent months, Amazon is stronger — and more profitable — than it was three years ago.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez arrives for the premiere of Amazon Prime’s ‘The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power’ on August 15, 2022

Amazon is not just the marketplace. It makes and sells its own products through a sprawling global supply chain. And most of its profits flow from its cloud services arm, Amazon Web Services, which now controls a third of the worldwide market. With Whole Foods, Amazon has a foot in the grocery industry. With the recent acquisition of One Medical, the corporation continues to make headway in the health care sector. Amazon has also become a big player in the entertainment industry — whether that’s Prime Video or Twitch, the live streaming video platform.