Internet giant Amazon is known for paying its workers poorly,paying hardly any attention to environmental laws and paying low to zero taxes. In a letter to Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, 400 members of parliament from 34 different countries now call for Amazon to finally accept its social and ecological responsibility and stop making profits on the backs of its workers and the environment. #makeamazonpay
Just last week, on Black friday, Amazon workers all over the word united together in a series of coordinated Black Friday protests. They protested over worker’s rights and enviromental justice. Employees in 15 countries demanded higher wages, the ending of union-busting and an end of Amazon circumventing tax laws.
To:
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, Inc.
                                                        Dezember 3rd, 2020
Mr. Bezos,
We, elected representatives and public officials from around the world, hereby put you on notice that Amazon’s days of impunity are over. Last Friday, 27 November, workers, activists, and citizens around the world joined forces to demand justice from Amazon. Today, we pledge to stand with this movement in every congress, parliament, and statehouse where we work.
In short, we write to you now with a single commitment: to Make Amazon Pay.
The world knows that Amazon can afford to pay its workers, its environmental cost and its taxes. And yet – time and again – you have dodged and dismissed your debts to workers, societies, and the planet. Your great wealth is based on the skills of your workers and the care they receive from their friends, family and communities. These are the very people who risked their health and that of their loved ones to
Make Amazon Pay supply goods to consumers and make you enormous profits. But while your personal wealth has risen by around US $13 million per hour in 2020, these workers enter dangerous working conditions, enjoy little or no increase in their pay, and face retaliation for their efforts to defend themselves and organize their colleagues.
We pledge again, alongside your workers, to Make Amazon Pay.
Your company’s rise to dominance has come with extraordinary costs to our environment. While you have personally acknowledged the climate emergency among the defining challenges of our era, Amazon’s carbon footprint is greater than two-thirds of the world’s countries. Your plan for emissions reduction is both insufficient to stay within the environmental boundaries of our planet and difficult to trust given Amazon’s record of broken promises on sustainability and financial contributions to climate change denial.
We pledge again, on behalf of our planet, to Make Amazon Pay.
Finally, you have undermined our democracies and their capacity to respond to collective challenges. Your monopolistic practices have squeezed small businesses, your web services have disrespected data rights, and you have contributed a pittance in return. For example, in 2017 and 2018, Amazon paid zero US federation corporation tax. Through your global tax dodging, you damage the public provision of health, education, housing, social security and infrastructure.
We pledge again, for our constituents, to Make Amazon Pay.
We urge you to act decisively to change your policies and priorities to do right by your workers, their communities, and our planet. We stand ready to act in our respective legislatures to support the movement that is growing around the world to Make Amazon Pay.
Yours sincerely…
Around the world, organizations and politicians are participating in the #makeamazonpay campaign. The goal is to make Amazon pay taxes, pay workers fair wages and show responsibility for the environment. With the common hashtag #makeamazonpay you can support the campaign.
