User:Marcas Racevicius/sandbox

Marcas Racevicius Dr. O'Sullivan-Gavin Bus 300 9-14-22

The Plague of Amazon What once started as a small online bookstore is now a multi billion dollar company and one of the biggest e-commerce businesses that this world has ever seen. Amazon is arguably the most well known website in the world and is not just a well run business. Amazon has a variety of issues that not many people are familiar with. This company is a plague to the United States because of its domination it has on the U.S. economy and its unethical and illegal work environment. Amazon treats its employees horribly because of the poor work conditions and its suppression of their employees' complaints. As you may or may not know already this company has some of the worst working conditions ever. For example, when the Covid-19 pandemic that struck the world Amazon employees were not taking the proper precautions that they should have to avoid outbreaks within the work space. “For instance, given that numerous Amazon employees aren’t given time or permission to use the restroom during their shift, they’re also more vulnerable to a potential COVID outbreak.” This is a quote from the article “A Closer Look at Amazon: Are Unethical Working Conditions on the Rise?” written by Beau Peters. This is an important statement because during the Covid pandemic, one thing that everyone was aware of was that if you wash your hands regularly, then you would have a less likely chance to get the virus because you are removing the germs and bacteria from your hands. This was especially important to the people that worked in the warehouses because those employees are touching, packaging, and assembling things all day that have the potential to have the virus on them. This could be considered unethical because if the workers obtained covid through their workspace, then they could bring it home to their families and possibly get their families sick as well. Adding on to the unethical part of what amazon does is their union busting. United States labor laws were put into place to ensure that employees are protected from businesses that may be causing harm to their employees. Amazon does a poor job of following these laws, and as a result, unions are made to try to stop the poor working conditions. According to the article “Amazon violated federal law with anti-union meetings, labor board says” by Jacob Knutson, it says “The National Labor Relations Board prosecutors determined that Amazon violated federal labor law by holding mandatory anti-union meetings at a warehouse where workers were weighing whether to unionize…” What this means is that Amazon was trying to shut down and chance of rebellion from their employees so they can keep giving them long hours and poor conditions. Another negative thing about Amazon is their power that they hold over the economy. Since Amazon is such a large company, it does not allow new competition to arise. It is extremely difficult to have new businesses to try to compete with a multi billion dollar company. According to an article called, “Fact Sheet: How Amazon Exploits and Undermines Small Businesses, and Why Breaking It Up Would Revive American Entrepreneurship” written by Stacy Mitchell and Ron Knox, “A majority of shoppers looking to buy something online begin their search on Amazon, and its site captures about 50 percent of online spending in the U.S.” With this, unless you have some revolutionary product that this world has yet to see, your chances of getting seen and getting online business are very low. It is important to think about the destruction of small businesses because they are considered to be extremely important to the United States economy. “Nationally, small businesses account for 48 percent of all American jobs and contribute 43.5 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Even though these businesses are considered the “backbone of the economy,” This is a quote from the article The Backbone of the Economy: How Small Businesses in Florida Have Fared During the Pandemic." If this domination of the economy keeps up, it will leave tons of people out of jobs. For example, “99 percent of all businesses in the United States are small businesses” from the article, "Small Businesses Are the Backbone of the Economy" . With 48% of people working in small businesses, it allows money to flow more efficiently throughout the economy and it does not keep poor people poorer and rich people richer.	Overall this company is a plague to the United States because of its domination it has on the U.S. economy and its unethical and illegal work environment, and a change needs to be made about their domination.

Citations:

Jordan. “Small Businesses Are the Backbone of the Economy.” Better Accounting, 24 June 2021, [betteraccounting.com/small-businesses-are-the-backbone-of-the-economy].

Knox, Stacy Mitchell And Ron. “Fact Sheet: How Amazon Exploits and Undermines Small Businesses, and Why Breaking It up Would Revive American Entrepreneurship.” Institute for Local Self-Reliance, 28 July 2022, ilsr.org/fact-sheet-how-breaking-up-amazon-can-empower-small-business.

Staff, Comms. “The Backbone of the Economy: How Small Businesses in Florida Have Fared During the Pandemic.” Florida TaxWatch, 22 Apr. 2021, floridataxwatch.org/Research/Full-Library/ArtMID/34407/ArticleID/19031/The-Backbone-of-the-Economy-How-Small-Businesses-in-Florida-Have-Fared-During-the-Pandemic#:%7E:text=Nationally%2C%20small%20businesses%20account%20for,during%20the%20COVID%2D19%20pandemic.

Reporter, Guardian Staff. “Exhausted Workers, Polluting Journeys: How Unethical Is Next-day Delivery?” The Guardian, 10 May 2022, www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/may/10/next-day-delivery-unethical-amazon-workers-pollution.

Peters, Beau. “A Closer Look at Amazon: Are Unethical Working Conditions on the Rise?” The Geopolitics, 14 Apr. 2021, thegeopolitics.com/a-closer-look-at-amazon-are-unethical-working-conditions-on-the-rise.