Yamada Cancels Amazon Prime

David Yamada is a crusader against workplace bullying. I read his blog regularly and this is his latest post. I think you should read it.

I find his rationale for dropping the service to be compelling. Why don’t you go to his site, read the full post and see if you agree?

James Pilant

Why I cancelled my Amazon Prime account « Minding the Workplace

I cancelled my Amazon Prime account earlier this week, and until working conditions for their employees improve, I won’t be shopping there nearly as often as I have previously.

Amazon Prime is a premium membership service that guarantees two-day shipping on almost every item ordered. For frequent customers such as myself, Prime offers easy, dependable, click-and-ship ordering, with hardly any waiting time for delivery.

However, revelations about Amazon’s labor practices have become increasingly disturbing, more specifically the working conditions in its vast merchandise warehouses. For me, the final straw was a recent Salon investigative piece by Simon Head, “Worse than Wal-Mart: Amazon’s sick brutality and secret history of ruthlessly intimidating workers,” detailing how the situation is much worse than I imagined …

via Why I cancelled my Amazon Prime account « Minding the Workplace.

From around the web.

From the web site, The Big Idea Bookstore.

http://thebigideapgh.wordpress.com/about-us/whats-wrong-with-amazon/

Cheap books aren’t always a bargain

• Cheap books are really publishers and authors receiving less: this doesn’t support the future of book publishing and quality writing. Amazon can offer “discounts” because they are cutting other costs: taxes, publisher payments, author payments, and safe-labor practices.

• Amazon has strong-armed many publishers into reducing the prices of their books and eBooks. In some instances when publishers have refused, Amazon has removed the “buy” button from the pages of the publishers’ books. This tactic threatens the ability of publishers to survive in an industry with an already low profit margin. (Read more: Books After Amazon)

• Amazon uses “loss leaders” to gain an unfair pricing advantage over their bookselling competition. Selling certain books (or Kindles) at a loss or no profit entices customers to their website to buy big ticket items (often non-book items, like electronics, since books are only a tiny fraction of Amazon’s Walmart-esque business model).

• Amazon refuses to pay taxes in most states, even when they have a physical presence there. By not paying state sales taxes, Amazon gains an advantage in pricing perception over independent bookstores because their prices seem lower by 5 to 8% (the sales tax rate in most states).

Working in an Amazon warehouse literally means working in a sweatshop

• Amazon’s Pennsylvania warehouses get so hot in summer months that Amazon keeps ambulances outside of the buildings to rush employees to the hospital. Employees must keep a brutal production pace even during heat waves or they risk being terminated. (Read more: Inside Amazon’s Warehouse)

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