Tuesday, March 30, 2021

Why Is Amazon Abusing Its Workers?

  

 

 

https://youtu.be/9q-uDVUJv90

 Why Is Amazon Abusing Its Workers?

by C.A. Matthews

Why is Amazon abusing its workers?

The company isn’t exactly hard-up. It’s the most profitable firm in America. Its executive chairman and largest shareholder, Jeff Bezos, is the richest man in the world, holding more wealth than the bottom 39 percent of Americans put together.

Amazon is abusing workers because it can.  --Robert Reich, Bessemer and the Power Shift

The original title of this piece was going to be Peeing in Bottles. This past week Amazon made the mistake of trying to Tweet its way out of the allegations that Amazon workers were forced to pee in bottles during work hours in order to keep up the inhuman pace set by management. They implied that workers were exaggerating and that nothing abusive had ever happened in an Amazon warehouse. 

It backfired big-time. (Amazon stock even dropped!) More and more sympathize with and support the Amazon warehouse workers in their attempt to organize and start the first union at an American Amazon facility. Nobody likes a bullying billionaire, after all. 

But why did it have to come to this? Why couldn't Amazon cooperate and listen to the workers' demands? There's only one reason and Robert Reich is right: Amazon abuses its workers because it can. 

Amazon's owner Jeff Bezos knows he can get away with it. A government that won't enact a decent minimum wage or give its citizens universal health care that isn't connected to their employment isn't exactly demonstrating that it cares for those who are being abused by a billionaire monopolist. A government that allows a fast food corporation to crush the measly attempt at a living wage--$15 per hour--isn't exactly proving that "promoting the general welfare" is very high on its list.



The mistreatment of workers is nothing new at Amazon. From an article published in 2019:

Amazon’s cutting-edge technology, unrelenting surveillance and constant disciplinary write-ups pushed the Eastvale workers so hard that in the last holiday season, they hit a coveted target: They got a million packages out the door in 24 hours. Amazon handed out T-shirts celebrating their induction into the “Million Unit Club.”

But Dixon, 54, wasn’t around for that. She started the job in April 2018, and within two months, or nearly 100,000 items, the lifting had destroyed her back. An Amazon-approved doctor said she had bulging discs and diagnosed her with a back sprain, joint inflammation and chronic pain, determining that her injuries were 100% due to her job. She could no longer work at Amazon. Today, she can barely climb stairs. Walking her dog, doing the dishes, getting out of her chair – everything is painful. According to her medical records, her condition is unlikely to improve. --Will Evans, Behind The Smiles

Amazon (and other companies) leave many disabled workers in their wake. You'd think with the bad press, all Amazon workers would gladly join a union and organize like hell for better working conditions. But believe it or not, they all won't. Decades of anti-union propaganda has taken its toll on American workers according to Daniel Medina:

 ...the organizing effort has been largely led by older workers, many of whom worked in union jobs before coming to Amazon. And many younger BHM1 workers have never interacted with a union over the course of their working lives and may have little understanding of the role a union has traditionally played in the workplace — a consequence, labor experts say, of a decade's long assault on organized labor in the Deep South. --Daniel A. Medina, Some Younger Amazon Workers Still Undecided

So, what really could happen if American Amazon workers aren't allowed to organize? Our history paints a grim picture:

On this day (March 26) 110 years ago, 146 garment workers, including 123 mostly young immigrant women, died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in lower Manhattan. Many of these women were forced to jumped from several stories to the pavement below because the intensely anti-union sweat shop owners had insisted on keeping exits locked and only one of four elevators were operating. 

These women were paid $15 a week and worked at least 12 hours a day, seven days a week. The owners of the sweatshop were outliers, who refused to acquiesce to the workers' demands that were made during the city-wide strike by the International Ladies Garment Workers Union for better pay and a more humane work schedule. --Bob Henelly, 110 Years Since the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Its Lessons Are Still Unlearned

It's time we learned from history and from the current workers forced to work under inhumane conditions at Amazon warehouses and elsewhere, It's time for everyone to support union organizing. The job--the life--you save may well be your own.

 


Related Articles:

Documents Show Amazon Is Aware Drivers Pee in Bottles ... https://theintercept.com/2021/03/25/amazon-drivers-pee-bottles-union/

Bessemer and the Power Shift https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68500-bessemer-and-the-power-shift

Behind The Smiles: Amazon's Internal Injury Records Expose the True Toll of its Relentless Drive For Speed https://revealnews.org/article/behind-the-smiles/ 

Some Younger Amazon Workers in Bessamer, New to Unions, Still Undecided  https://theintercept.com/2021/03/23/amazon-union-bessamer-bernie-sanders/ 

Bernie Sanders Leads Delegation to Alabama to Boost Amazon Union Drive  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/26/bernie-sanders-bessemer-alabama-amazon-workers-union-fight 

110 Years Since the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire, Its Lessons Are Still Unlearned https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68518-focus-110-years-since-the-triangle-shirtwaist-fire-its-lessons-are-still-unlearned

Amazon's PR Flacks Are Starting to Sweat https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/68542-amazons-pr-flacks-are-starting-to-sweat

Fast Food Giant Claims Credit For Killing $15 Minimum Wage https://www.dailyposter.com/p/fast-food-giant-claims-credit-for

***

The Revolution Continues is now in our sixth year taking on the propaganda of the fauxgressives and their friends in the corporate-owned duopoly. We need passionate revolutionaries like you to help us provide progressive insights that are being actively censored elsewhere. If you can donate a little to the cause, please do so at the Paypal.me link below.

http://paypal.me/camatthews

Thanks for all you do in making the world a better place. Power to the people!

***


 
Low-income folks should be able to access abortion.

 

Today, Representative Barbara Lee, along with Representatives Diana DeGette, Jan Schakowsky, and Ayanna Pressley have introduced the Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Insurance (EACH) Act. EACH is bold federal legislation that aims to get rid of the Hyde Amendment and related abortion coverage restrictions in health care plans.

For more than 40 years, the Hyde Amendment, which bars the use of federal funds for abortions, has created barriers to accessing abortion care that disproportionately affect low-income and women of color. Not only women are affected by this, but trans men and nonbinary folks are also affected by the Hyde Amendment which has effectively stripped healthcare from those who would otherwise have it.

EACH ensures that individuals who receive health insurance through plans like Medicaid or will be covered for their abortion care and we need your help. 

 

 

The more cosponsors we gain on this important legislation, the closer we get to getting the bill marked up and to the congressional floor. That’s why we need you to email your legislators and tell them to cosponsor EACH, and if they’re already a cosponsor tell them to ask a colleague to join as a co-sponsor as well!

Together, we can work to end the Hyde Amendment and become one step closer to a world where Reproductive Justice is a reality, let’s work to get EACH cosponsored.

URGE is proud to have worked with our friends at All* Above All and other reproductive health, rights, and justice organizations and advocates to reintroduce this historic legislation.

In Solidarity,

           Monica (She/Her)

***

Families Belong Together (Logo)

We've all seen the screaming headlines about the border this week, but let me be the first to tell you: they're missing the point. 

What's missing from the story is the fact that our collective humanity is at stake. This is about how we as a nation are going to treat children and families

These are mothers and fathers who like any parent would move heaven and earth for their children. They've fled horrific violence, abject poverty, and climate disasters. 

Are we really going to slam the door on families who had no other option but to run for their lives? On kids who had no choice but to come here alone? 

What's happening at the border didn't happen overnight--and it's certainly not a political football to be thrown around when lives are at stake. 

Because you've stood with Families Belong Together from the beginning, I know you care just as much as I do about protecting children and how we as a nation live up to our values. I know that time and time again you've shown up to support our dedicated activists, case workers, attorneys, and coalition of partners who are working 24/7 to keep children out of detention, avoid cruel deportations, reunite families, and welcome children with dignity. 

The only thing that matters right now is that children are at our doorstep. 

We've mobilized and are working directly with our partners on the ground to push back on the racist, dehumanizing rhetoric that leaves humanity out of the story. 

Here are three ways you can help us today: 

  1. Pledge your frequent flyer miles, credit card points, or cash to help book flights for migrant families seeking safety. 
  2. Take our pledge to join the movement for family dignity and we'll reach out to you with invitations to our volunteer training.
  3. Donate today to reunify refugee families, provide legal services, and supply necessities for families and children at the border.

Join us,

Paola Luisi, Director 
Families Belong Together

Tuesday, March 23, 2021

Who or What Can You Believe?


Who or What Can You Believe?

Some say capitalism is the only system of economics that works for everyone and that programs like UBI aren't necessary to maintain it, and yet...

Many workers have been told that "China is stealing your jobs!" And then there's this:
 

 

Democrats accused Trump's administration of being full of corporate grifters.  https://www.citizen.org/article/corporatecabinet/

Yet Biden's administration discloses that it's full of former corporate lobbyists as well. https://www.dailyposter.com/p/biden-aides-disclose-their-corporate

The CDC says six feet apart is the minimum safe distance to keep in order to prevent transmitting the coronavirus. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html 

Yet school districts across the nation now say it's safe for students' desks to be three feet apart--so their parents can return to work. https://nbc24.com/newsletter-daily/cdc-changes-school-guidance-allowing-desks-to-be-closer-03-19-2021-150920969

V.P. Kamala Harris says she is all for police reform, and yet her history as an Attorney General says otherwise: https://www.dailyposter.com/p/kamala-harris-police-accountability

And while V.P. Kamala Harris readily admits to smoking pot, Biden's White House fires their staffers for marijuana use. https://www.thedailybeast.com/biden-white-house-sandbags-staffers-sidelines-dozens-for-pot-use  

HR-1 or the "For the People Act" promises some needed voting reforms, yet  at the same time it will allow billionaires to flood unrestricted Dark Money into the campaign coffers of the Democrats and Republicans, further weakening what remains of our democracy.  https://continuousrev.blogspot.com/2021/03/poison-pill-politics.html

In February, the Biden administration submitted a bill to Congress, the US Citizenship Act of 2021, stating it would "reinstate the United States' commitment to human rights," and yet it reopened the very same Trump-era children "overflow facilities" to lock up immigrant children within a month. https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68402-immigration-reopening-mass-influx-facilities-goes-against-biden-administration-promises 

https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/68353-unaccompanied-immigrant-minors-are-not-a-qborder-crisisq-but-a-humanitarian-crisis

 


Also:

All student loan debt hasn't been cancelled as promised by Biden during the presidential campaign.

We didn't realize the $2000 stimulus check as promised in January by Biden and Harris while campaigning in the Georgia special election. 

Medicare For All has yet to be enacted in spite of promises made along the campaign trail.

Enacting a $15 an hour minimum wage seems to be a thing of the past for Dems--no matter if they claimed to support it in 2020.

Police officers and others are still getting away with murder of minorities.

And there are still kids in cages.

Who or what can you believe?

We could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.  You can only believe in yourself. Any conflicting information you read and hear in the mainstream media only provides further proof that they're in on the con.


The mainstream media will take the contradictions inadvertently revealed by those in power and manufacture them into a cover story full of misdirection and half-truths--Russia!--rather than actual facts. These spin doctors are so good at what they do that they will make you question your own memory and your own sanity if you let them.

The solution? Cut back or stop altogether watching and reading mainstream media outlets. Stop allowing their talking heads to fill yours with their nonsense. It's only going to give you a headache. 

What can you do to find out what's really happening in the world? Find as many independent media outlets as you can broadcasting a news story and learn to trust your instincts when comparing sources. Who makes money if you follow this particular media outlet's lead? And if something coming out of the mouth of a politician or an extremely well-paid pundit sounds unbelievable or is later proven false, don't hesitate to refute them or boycott them.

There's no reason for anyone to put up with liars, no matter how apparently high ranking or famous they are. Always insist on integrity. If more of us did this more often, what a wonderful world this would be.

Lee demonstrates how disingenuous our mainstream media can be in the following video:

 

https://youtu.be/rcPyb_9Rl68

***

The Revolution Continues is now in our sixth year taking on the propaganda of the fauxgressives and their friends in the corporate-owned duopoly. We need passionate revolutionaries like you to help us provide progressive insights that are being actively censored elsewhere. If you can donate a little to the cause, please do so at the Paypal.me link below.

http://paypal.me/camatthews

Thanks for all you do in making the world a better place. Power to the people!

*** 

We’ll be direct: There’s a youth nicotine addiction crisis raging across America, and Big Tobacco’s flavored products are fueling it like gasoline on a fire.

Whether it’s longtime products like menthol cigarettes or stealthy new e-cigarettes like Juul, the tobacco industry has relied on flavors to hook generation after generation on their dangerous products. It’s a strategy dating back decades – one that continues even during a pandemic, when protecting lung health couldn’t be more critical.

The result? More than 15,000 flavors on store shelves, addicting more kids and putting their health and brain development in jeopardy.

We must end flavored tobacco sales to stop this crisis of youth addiction – but we can’t do it without you. Will you add your name and join this urgent effort?

Here are the facts:

  • More than 81% of kids who have ever used tobacco started with a flavored product
  • Flavored tobacco makes it easier for young users to start
  • 3.6 million kids nationwide are using nicotine-loaded e-cigs, unraveling years of progress in lowering youth tobacco use

It’s not all bad news, C.A. – we’ve made real progress against this threat. Five states and hundreds of cities nationwide have cracked down on flavored tobacco products. And last year, for the first time ever, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to end the sale of flavored tobacco.

2021 could be the year we finish the job and finally stop Big Tobacco from luring and addicting our kids with flavored products. But it won’t happen without a grassroots army demanding action. That’s where you come in.

JOIN US: There’s no time to waste. Sign up and join our fight to end youth nicotine addiction. >>

Thanks,

Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids 

*** 

 From Public Citizen:

“Get used to me.”

That’s what Postmaster General Louis DeJoy told Congress last month during a hearing into unprecedented service cuts and mail delays under his leadership of the United States Postal Service.

DeJoy is a Republican mega-donor who has given over $2 million to the Trump campaign and other Republican causes since 2016.

Last year, Public Citizen helped file a lawsuit in federal court — in which we prevailed — to stop DeJoy from disrupting mail delivery leading up to the November election.

Now, DeJoy is about to propose additional changes that could delay the mail even more.

Too many Americans count on the Post Office to leave it in the hands of a Trump sycophant who seems bent on running the agency into the ground.


Tell the USPS Board of Governors:

Fire Louis DeJoy.

Add your name.

Thanks for taking action.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

 

 

Tuesday, March 16, 2021

No One Should Live In Poverty

 


 

"Why don't we cut child poverty in whole? Why are we leaving half the children in poverty? How much child poverty are you comfortable with?" All valid questions Jimmy asks the propagandists. https://youtu.be/7SboDoWF_XU

The Trinity of Needs

by Coast Watcher

Nobody should lack a roof over their heads, food on the table, and access to free healthcare. This is a simple trinity of needs that a country as rich as the United States is more than capable of meeting. In fact it’s right up there in the preamble to the Constitution—it’s the American government’s duty to promote the general welfare. 

General (definition): Everybody.

Welfare (definition): Health, happiness, prosperity. 

Instead we have the unedifying spectacle of the government doing it’s best to water down all welfare passed to its people while providing ever-greater wealth for a select minority of uber-rich parasites. The one-off $1400 is patently less than the $2000 Biden and numerous so-called Democratic Party candidates promised before the Georgia run-off elections in a clear bribe to the electorate. It’s also means tested. That’s right; the so-called Democrats delivered less than their governmental partner in crime, the Republican Party.

If the United States was a properly-functioning country it'd be focused on getting affordable nutritious food to all people as a form of health care. Instead it’s entirely focused on food banks to ensure people don't starve to death. Food deserts are rife and spreading as supermarket chains grow ever larger and migrate to the wealthier neighborhoods.

If the United States were not a failed nation, it would provide housing for all its citizens. There are on average 550,000 people sleeping rough every night in all weathers. There are on average 4.2 vacant houses for every homeless person. Instead banks and mortgage companies seize properties which then stand vacant for years in a state of gradual decay.

Thirty two out of thirty three first world nations have universal free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare services. Only the United States does not. Instead, American healthcare costs on average twice as much as that found in any other country, while delivering half the value.

The situation is as it is because there are those who make money out of poverty, hunger, poor healthcare and homelessness. These people would have you believe the people afflicted by these dire situations are to blame for their plight. The money to rectify all these problems is there. The political will is not. Politicians prefer to cozy up to Big Business and accept funding and policy direction from their boards of directors than to listen to what the ordinary people need.

The time has come for a drastic change for the better, before it’s too late.


BIO: Coast Watcher isn't buying the "We can save half the children in poverty" line of the Dems. Every child could be saved. He sees who's behind these morally corrupt politicians and why they don't act too anxious to end poverty for all time for everyone on the planet. #CapitalismKills is more than just a hashtag--it's a truth that is becoming more and more evident to more and more people than ever before. Don't let them try to convince you that some folks must live in poverty in order for our economy to function...because no one should.

Spotted on Twitter: 

Related Articles and Videos:

https://youtu.be/cCcMwZ2a29E

The American Dream of Upward Mobility Is Broken https://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/68288-the-american-dream-of-upward-mobility-is-broken-look-at-the-numbers

The Sovietization of the American Press https://scheerpost.com/2021/03/14/the-sovietization-of-the-american-press/ 

Capitalist Economies Overproduce Food But People Can't Afford To Buy It  https://truthout.org/articles/capitalist-economies-overproduce-food-but-people-cant-afford-to-buy-it/

Biden's Big Bailout Can't Pull America Out of Its Death Spiral (by Chris Hedges) https://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/68328-focus-bandaging-the-corpse-bidens-big-bailout-cant-pull-america-out-of-its-death-spiral 

How Democrats Abandoned You In Relief Bill (video) https://youtu.be/7xge33CwtL0

***

I went to Louisville, KY, last summer and felt the violence of the Louisville Metropolitan Police Department firsthand. Three of my friends were arrested while we protested for justice in Breonna Taylor’s name, and I was sent to the hospital after police shot us with rubber bullets.
 
Luckily, they weren’t real bullets, and I wasn’t another Black woman murdered by police.

One year ago today, Louisville police officers shot and killed Breonna Taylor. She was a young, Black woman like me, only a little older. Despite Breonna Taylor’s murder receiving intense press coverage and her name becoming known worldwide, we still don’t have justice. Her murder sparked a nationwide outcry – I was on the streets of Washington, D.C., nearly every day this summer alongside hundreds of peaceful protesters, demanding justice for Black lives, including Breonna Taylor and her family.


Police violence is gun violence. Breonna Taylor was one of the many Black women who was unfairly and unnecessarily stolen by America’s racist gun violence epidemic. And it’s not something unique to my generation: Black people have faced deadly bias and racial profiling from police for decades and are twice as likely to be killed by them. We must take action to protect Black lives, C.A.. Right now, the Senate has the chance to pass sweeping police accountability policies that would potentially save Black lives and chip away at the racist institution that took Breonna Taylor’s life.
 
The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act this month and if it passes the Senate, it could prevent unjustified murders by police. This bill would ban the use of chokeholds, like in the murder of George Floyd, and ban no-knock warrants — like the one that police used to enter Breonna Taylor’s home. This is a critical step in drastically overhauling the racist policing tactics that are taking the lives of far too many Black Americans.
 
Since the moment I had to use my classmate’s lifeless body to protect myself from being shot at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in 2018, I have been putting my own body on the line to fight against the gun violence that is predominantly killing Black and Brown young people. Today, one year after Breonna Taylor was murdered by police, I am asking you to fight with me and take action against racist gun violence perpetrated by police. I am asking you to fight as hard as I do for Black lives.
 

In honor of Breonna Taylor, will you sign our petition urging the Senate to pass this critical legislation to address policing? We cannot end gun violence without ending police violence.
 
I am remembering Breonna Taylor today. I am thinking of all the Black women who I am lucky to know and work with every day. And I will keep fighting for Black women until we finally address gun violence in this country.
 
Thank you for fighting for justice for Breonna Taylor and Black lives.
 
Aalayah Eastmond

Gun Violence Survivor
Team ENOUGH Executive Council Member
Founder, Concerned Citizens DC

 ***

From Roots Action:


As a result of broad U.S. economic sanctions, countries such as Iran, Syria, Venezuela, North Korea, Sudan, and Zimbabwe struggle without adequate food, electricity, medicine, medical supplies, masks and respirators. Those who suffer most under sanctions include pregnant women, children, and the chronically ill.

We need to urge the Biden administration to issue a worldwide temporary general license to allow all countries and locations sanctioned by the United States to be able to easily import all related medicines, medical supplies, and vaccines, to facilitate international relief efforts related to COVID-19.

We've put together, with our allies, a petition that will be delivered to President Joe Biden; Vice President Kamala Harris; White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain; Sec. of State Antony Blinken; Sec. of Defense Lloyd Austin; Sec. of the Treasury Janet Yellen; and Sec. of Commerce Gina Raimondo.

Click here to add your name!

Facebook button Donate button Twitter button

The U.S. Treasury Department has the power to issue a worldwide, temporary general license authorizing the exportation and re-exportation of medical supplies and equipment and other essential goods that might otherwise be prohibited by sanctions. The temporary general license would not require Congress to suspend or repeal sanctions and would only cover the listed types of supplies and equipment. By making it clear these types of financial transactions are allowable, this license would aid in the donation or sale of items such as test kits, respirators, sanitizers, personal protective equipment, and medicine, which are all critical for preventing and treating COVID-19.

U.S. economic sanctions technically exempt humanitarian items -- but banks, insurance companies, and other corporations are afraid that if they make loans, provide insurance for shipments, or send goods, the U.S. government will accuse them of violating the sanctions, levy hefty fines, and place them on a banned business list.

An April 2020 Human Rights Watch report explained that sanctions have had a particularly detrimental effect on Iran’s healthcare system, as the country lacks access to critical medical equipment and medicine despite existing exemptions. UN Human Rights Commissioner Michele Bachelet echoed this point when she called for an easing of sanctions for COVID-19 relief. Past Republican and Democratic Party administrations have issued temporary general licenses after earthquakes in Iran. So, there is precedent for following through on this request.

Sign the petition here!

***

The Revolution Continues is now in our sixth year taking on the propaganda of the fauxgressives and their friends in the corporate-owned duopoly. We need passionate revolutionaries like you to help us provide progressive insights that are being actively censored elsewhere. If you can donate a little to the cause, please do so at the Paypal.me link below.

http://paypal.me/camatthews

Thanks for all you do in making the world a better place. Power to the people!