Minnesota legislators must respond to Amazon’s business model
If you see a package from Amazon this holiday season, I hope you’ll take a minute to think about all the Minnesota workers who had a hand in delivering it. When Amazon arrived in Minnesota six years ago, it promised to provide our state with safe, reliable jobs with dignified wages. Instead, it delivered our communities quite the opposite. Amazon isn’t living up to its promises or the values we hold in Minnesota.
At the warehouses of one of the world’s most profitable companies, Minnesotans are forced to work at a frenetic pace under intense electronic surveillance and the threat of discipline. Workers report pushing themselves to the brink to meet quotas that Amazon changes constantly and sometimes doesn’t even disclose. If they can’t meet their high quotas, workers are penalized or fired. They’re replaced with new employees, and the cycle starts all over again.
Amazon uses this model to
