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Remember when Amazon got caught stealing tips from their drivers?
I mean, was anyone surprised?
The pandemic has been absolutely brutal and arguably traumatic for the vast majority of us, whether it be the stress of trying to homeschool children while juggling a full time job, losing our jobs, or having a loved one dying in a hospital and being unable to hold their hand. Hundreds of thousands of people are dead, millions more lost their jobs, and if nothing else it has revealed the fundamental flaws of a dying empire that continues to hide behind the facade of unimaginable wealth that’s hoarded in the hands of a few.
Of course, it hasn’t been bleak for all of us. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has nearly doubled his wealth, capitalizing off of the very same situation that has brought misery and uncertainty to the vast majority of the rest of us. Occasionally whenever Bezos happens to cross my mind, I remember the fact that after he traveled into space aboard his Blue Origin spacecraft, he thanked his employees. I remember him sitting there, saying:
“every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you guys paid for all this”.
To be fair, he wasn’t wrong. His employees have certainly paid for it, and to their own detriment as well.
I mean, remember when Amazon was literally caught stealing tips from their drivers?
According to the FTC’s website:
“Amazon will pay more than $61.7 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it failed to pay Amazon Flex drivers the full amount of tips they received from Amazon customers over a two and a half year period. The FTC’s complaint alleges that the company stopped its behavior only after becoming aware of the FTC’s investigation in 2019.”
Tens of millions of dollars were literally stolen from Amazon workers. A company that was not only founded by one of the world’s richest men, but up until very recently — and at that time — was being run by him as well.
Tesla founder, CEO, and world’s richest man Elon Musk has been in the news a lot lately, as he should be considering he made $36 billion in a single day while our lawmakers fret about whether or not…
