What is the secret of success of the richest man in the world?
Unique innovation and technology?
Nope. Amazon is a pure retail company. Buy cheap, sell expensive. Get the margin in your pocket. Spend it to protect yourself from your own employees.
Most of the Amazon technology is to improve the process of buying-selling. Making money faster.
The more inhuman the process, the more money Amazon makes.
Apart from retail, what ways does Amazon use to monetize the technology?
- Software helping to deport people out of the country
- System tracking the employees
- etc
Motivated employees who love the work?
Nope. Absolute majority of Amazon employees hate their work. They work for money only. Whether it is warehouse associate or software engineer. Even Amazon "soldiers" HR hate their job.
Most Amazon engineers dream to run away to the "normal" company. They only reason they stay at Amazon is they still don't have other offer.
The power of Bezos is simply our fear
Amazon employees don't like their work. The only thing holding them is fear:
- Fear to lose family income
- Fear to lose immigration status
- Fear to lose medical insurance for your relatives
- Fear of persecution (private detectives, attorneys, violence threats)
You can say: Oleg! You should replace "Amazon" word with "any big company". That is because any big company works like that. An employee of any company is afraid of losing his job.
My response is as follows. Yes it is true. Any company holds employees by paying salaries. However, the Amazon case is different. It is all about statistics. E. g. Amazon has abnormal level of suicides among fulfillment center employees. Amazon has abnormal level of immigrants among engineers because Americans don't want to work for Amazon. That allows the company to implement "working visa slavery".
But the scariest thing is treatment of relatives (dependents). Employees of any organisation are afraid of termination because of medical insurance for children, parents, spouse etc. This fear is especially high if some of relatives are disabled and needs regular treatment.
Amazon uses this fear in a hardest possible way. That is the outrageous distinction between Amazon and other companies. When Amazon retaliates employee's complaint, the company cancels medical insurance for the relative even if the employee is not terminated yet. Preventing to treat your disabled relative is even worse than the hostile environment.
This becomes especially hard in other countries where Amazon has its businesses. If an employee works not in the US, most probably he is not protected by COBRA program (providing insurance if an employee is terminated).
Of course, it is not a normal practice in other companies to commit threats of violence towards its own employees. But in Amazon it is. No, it is not a single case. It is a culture, because I have an evidence of more than one case.
So what to do?
Don't feed the monster with your fear
The major thing Bezos needs is to feel your fear. I get calories from cabbage and apples. Fast food lovers get calories from Big Mac. Bezos gets his calories from our fear.
Than he can push and squash you as much as he can because he knows you will endure. You will endure because you are afraid of consequences. Because you are afraid to complain.
But if all oppressed employees would complain simultaneously, join and fight together, the monster will run away. And Mr Bezos would feel the fear himself.
Don't become a victim. Don't be afraid to complain. Don't be afraid to become a whistle blower.
Discrimination?
Retaliation?
Mistake of supervisor?
Sexual harassment?
Private dislike of supervisor?
Earlier I described retaliation as a part of Amazon culture. And Amazon covers this retaliation under the huge layer of lies. However I bet there is another very popular reason for the wrongful termination. And in the future this could become even more popular than retaliation.
Ready? It is free speech restriction. Mainly by the false "pivot appeal" program.
The logic is very simple. And I told about it many times before. An employee is given a "chance" to appeal his termination action in front of the independent jury consisting of other employees.
The trap is: the employee is prohibited to speak about any law violations of his manager during this appeal.
Imagine a sexual assault lawsuit. The victim is told: "You are prohibited to tell to the jury about anything somehow related to the sexual assault. You can tell only how nice you are etc".
Again, I told about this many times before. Why I am raising this concern again? The reason is upcoming class action. I set a class action lawsuit as my main goal. But many people think it is difficult. To combine thousands of people in one process, analyze the data etc. Even the lawsuit with one plaintiff could be difficult and huge enough. For sure it should take much more effort to start a class action. And it should take much much much more effort to win it.
Nope. I do not agree. It is easy enough. Let's come back to the beginning of this post. Apart from other reasons for class action, lets take a look at the Amazon's pivot appeal procedure only. Even my grandma could start and win a class action based on pivot appeal. You still have a doubt? So did I. But now I have not. Let me explain.
My grandma is very old. She uses a cane. But she is still able to do some basic things. She can write emails. And she can read emails. And btw she has a computer! She only needs to:
(1) Go to the Court website and file a lawsuit (by filling in simple template and paying a fee)
(2) At the discovery stage, send email to Amazon requesting to disclose data of all the employees who were terminated after they lost at pivot appeal.
(3) Insert emails of all these employees into the addressee field of the email with a text: "Please file this template and join my class action lawsuit if you believe you were wrongfully terminated by Amazon"
I know, I know. My grandma also needs to survive pleadings stage, do a lot of bureaucracy and it is better for her to hire a lawyer. And for sure there are some things that I did not count here, thus this cannot be a full legal advice.
But the more important thing of grandma metaphor is as follows. The unfairness of the Amazon policies is so obvious. Thus to win class action against Amazon is much easy than against any other average regular company.
PS
When I was a kid, my grandma fed me with delicious meals. That's why she supports my fight in everything except of hunger strike.
Looking forward for good music surrounding this. 05/19/2019 update: music is here
They yell at me, they yell at us:
"If you don't like this job, get out!
And your complaint does not make sense
You have no rights. So please get out!
We have HR, we have the guards
We have attorneys and the power!
We will beat shit out of you
We can do that cause you are nothing!
We will beat shit out of you
We can do that cause you are nothing!"
Chorus
Oh Amazon Oh Amazon
Oppression, tortures, persecution
And I hear the voice of God
And I hear the voice of God
He asks to act and to protest
And he prohibits to be silent
And I speak up and I oppose
Cause God is stronger than Jeff Bezos
And I speak up and I oppose
Cause God is stronger than Jeff Bezos
Fulfillment center, heart of hell
The robot breaks the back of worker
Girl on the floor, she cannot stand
Yet she is young but yet disabled
HR then yells: "go back to work,
If you don't like this job, get out!"
Jeff Bezos looks at his insects
Cutting their legs, experimenting
Jeff Bezos looks at his insects
Cutting their legs, experimenting
Chorus
Oh Amazon Oh Amazon
Oppression, tortures, persecution
And I hear the voice of God
And I hear the voice of God
He asks to act and to protest
And he prohibits to be silent
And I speak up and I oppose
Cause God is stronger than Jeff Bezos
And I speak up and I oppose
Cause God is stronger than Jeff Bezos
The pregnant mother asks for leave
But supervisor does not like it
He bullies her, he threatens her
Then she wakes up and see the doctor
"You child is dead, your life at risk,
Say thanks to God cause you are lucky"
Children of Bezos are alive
They are healthy, they don't suffer
Children of Bezos are alive
They are healthy, they don't suffer
Chorus
Oh Amazon Oh Amazon
Oppression, tortures, persecution
And I hear the voice of God
And I hear the voice of God
He asks to act and to protest
And he prohibits to be silent
And I speak up and I oppose
Cause God is stronger than Jeff Bezos
And I speak up and I oppose
Cause God is stronger than Jeff Bezos
What if I would speak in front of jury trying Amazon?
I have never been at trial in lawsuit against Amazon... yet. But I would like to be there.
What if I would be there? What questions would I ask? What questions will I be asked?
What will I tell to jury in my final speech? Maybe something like that...
I would start my speech with ...
I don't know what is on your mind. Maybe you think Amazon did something bad with this guy. Or maybe you think Amazon did nothing bad. And he is just another "low-performer" who is trying to get his piece of big pie. He knows Amazon is multi-billion company. Maybe he does not deserve a bonus at work because he worked not better than others. That's why he fights in courtroom to get his "bonus".
You know what? Partially it is true. I am not the top-performer. And I do not deserve high yearly bonus at my company. Moreover, I really would like to cut some piece of this fat pie.
But there is something else I need to say. I am not the worst-performer. And I fight for another bonus. And the piece I want to cut is really huge. This piece is called justice for all.
I fight not for money. Nobody ever paid me for my protests at the street. In my claims, I do not specify certain amount of money. Instead, I would like to cut bigger piece of this pie. I would like to change Amazon policies. I would like them to make public statement. I would like every victim of Amazon to get a relief.
There are some victims not presented in this room. Many of them have no ability to represent them in the courtroom. Not only because they are poor. They worked for Amazon in another countries, where Amazon used local labor market and local laws to stay unpunished. One guy Ismaila worked 3 years for Amazon in Morocco. Amazon bullied and retaliated against him after his complaint to HR. As a retaliation, Amazon prevented medical treatment for his family and his pregnant wife lost the child.
This child could become a next engineer, doctor, even a president. But Amazon decided this life is not valuable. Amazon could try to mitigate this. The company could try to help his family. Or the company could try at least to say "We are sorry..," But the company did neither of that. Instead, Amazon terminated him.
I believed to every single word of Ismaila because I saw the similar treatment of the company. Like thousands of other employees. Regardless of the country, the company's toxic culture is the same. HR and management retaliated my complaints also.
I can't imagine the pain of Ismaila. I will never wish anybody else to experience that. That's why I decided to speak up. I printed photo of him on a banner and started picketing the Amazon office in NY. Guess what was the reaction of Amazon building security? Security of the building started to hide my banner! They bashfully surrounded me hoping that people around will not see it!
Then I realized what is called "the real FACE of Amazon". When I was dying on hunger strike without food and water, Amazon managers openly mocked me and threatened me with physical violence.
I am not afraid of attorneys because I have a faith
But they chosen the wrong guy because I am not afraid. They couldn't understand that I thank God for such a gift. I could not imagine better opportunity to fill my life with real sense. God gave me a chance to bring some value to humanity. And I am blessed to join this holly fight against cruelty. In the end of my life I will be proud of years I spent fighting Amazon and protecting its victims. Instead of regretting of years lost in front of TV. Or years lost working for Amazon as a slave. It is better to be a hero of the movie, rather than a viewer.
I am here alone without a lawyer. I have no millions of dollars for expensive attorneys. Amazon brought against me the squad of professional counsels. Look at them. They are armed with Harvard diplomas, licenses and tons of money.
Amazon already spent hundreds thousands of dollars on their services. Average lawsuit costs $200k - $1mln to the company. This is how the business spends money of its customers. Happy Prime customer thinks he spends $13 to create new workplaces and feed families of employees. Nope. Amazon spends this money to fight its employees. Amazon feeds its lawyers.
Do you know how much does attorney earn per hour? He earns 20 times higher than an employee! 20 times! Amazon fulfillment center worker gets $15 an hour. Attorney can get as high as $500 an hour! Amazon is able to spend 20 times more money to fight its employees rather than to support its employees!
Why Amazon is inhuman?
After all of that, I got answers to most of my questions.
I had a question what to do and I got the answer.
I had a question, should I protest? And my clear answer was "yes".
I had a question, should I afraid of them? And my clear answer was "no".
But there was one more question without an answer.
This question made me thinking numerous days and nights. And I did not get an answer. This question sounds like a simple question. This question is "Why?" Regardless of your verdict today I will not get an accurate answer to this question.
Why Amazon commits such inhumane experiments with its employees? Why Jeff Bezos cannot stop it? Jeff officially provides in his main leadership principle "Insist on the Highest Standards: Leaders have relentlessly high standards - many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar..." It is not single "bad manager" or single oppressed employee. It is the company's culture. Company's policies officially encourage to squash employees as much as supervisor can.
Is this only about the money? Jeff has $200 billion. It would be crazy to let children of employees die to get more money when you don't know where to spend them to. If the money is not the reason, then what is the root cause?
How can a person treat humans like small defenseless insects? Experiment with them like with insects, mock them and finally kill them. What a monster the person should be? I was terrified thinking about that. But then I found one thing about myself. And I became terrified even more.
I also was a monster. But I grew up
When I was 4 years old, I used to play in the yard near of our home. There was a lot of sand and grass on the ground - perfect place for children to play. And a lot of insects were living on that ground. Ants, bugs, caterpillars... These insects never did something bad to me or to my friends. They were just living with their families, growing children, eating grass and making ecosystem better. But me and my friends did terrible things with them.
I was small and stupid. I did not understand what cruelty is. I just followed my need to know something new, to discover this big world, to innovate. I took the bug and cut his leg. Then I observed how he will move. Then I cut another leg. And I was interested how bug will react. I didn't want to kill the bug. I just wanted to know what happens if I change something. How many legs does the bug need to move and survive. I didn't understand the bug has a family. I didn't know what is a death.
Then I grown up. Today I know what is cruelty and what is kindness. I know what does it mean to help and to forgive. To suffer and to sustain. To feel pain and to be happy. When I step on the grass, intuitively I look at the ground to make sure I will not squash somebody and will not make somebody else single parent. If I meet a bug at my home, I never squash it. I take it by my fingers and let it fly outside of the window.
I was sure everybody of us has grown up and everybody shares my values. But here is the mistake. Not everybody grown up. Not everybody is adult yet. Somebody is still a child. 55 years old child.
Jeff Bezos spent more than half of his life. He attended school and even created a family. But he did not grow up. He has powerful intelligence and physical body of adult person. But he did not develop his soul and he still has a spirit of 5 years old boy. He plays with spaceships. He plays with people like with small insects. He still wants to cut legs of bugs. He wants to know how much time can a bug move boxes without lunch and restroom until it dies in the fulfillment center. Jeff Bezos does not need a revenge. Jeff Bezos needs compassion and proper treatment.
Amazon bosses treat their own children in the best way the can
Children of Jeff Bezos are alive. They are happy and healthy.
When the mother (who was Amazon employee) suffered and observed her child death, guess what Jeff Bezos did? He enjoyed life with his family at the expensive hotel! Most of his employees would never afford to have a vacation in Norway.
Apart from Ismaila, I have my personal story. Child of my supervisor Uwais Khan is growing healthy and happy. Uwais even took 1 month paid leave to help his wife with taking care about the newborn! At the same time my daughter was sick. I took the leave in compliance with Amazon policy. When Uwais came back from his leave, he punished me for that leave. He disciplined me. He showed me omissions at my work during couple of days of my leave.
Do you have the loved one? Wife, husband? What would you feel if your boss would prevent you from seeing your wife? Not for one day, not for one week. For half a year. It is not all. What would you feel if your boss would prevent you from seeing your daughter? What would you feel if your boss would prevent you from treating your daughter when she is seek?
If we will not stop them, they will go further
In the year of 2015 famous article of New York Times about bruising workplace of Amazon was published. I worked there since 2017. I testify, since then the situation only became worse.
The nature of the monster is to grow until it meets obstacle. Amazon monopoly did not meed natural obstacles yet. It is our duty to oppose. Or it will go further. What will happen tomorrow? What if your children would work for Amazon? Your grandparents? What if somebody of them would be treated like that?
Today Amazon is $800 billion company. This monster eats and grow, eats and grow. It consumes everything. And it destroys everything that is opposing its growth: employees, families, children. Its DNA restricts neither its size neither level of cruelty.
But you know what? I already won regardless of your verdict. No, I don't predict the future. And I don't know what is on your mind. But I won in front of God. Tonight I will come back home. And I will tell something to my family and to God. Regardless of your verdict I will tell them: I did everything I could. I have no doubts, I don't regret. If you made the verdict, God wanted it to be in that way. I have nothing else to do. I have nothing to lose. And I am already happy.
I don't want to claim money in the pocket of Jeff Bezos. He has $200 billion. And it is his money. Nobody can take it, even disabled and injured employees in his fulfillment centers. Employees can take it only via the Court proceedings or labor union bargains (that's why I encourage unionizing and that's why Amazon illegally prevents unionizing).
But I want to claim the way Amazon spends its money. No, I don't ask to increase salaries or to provide additional benefits (BTW labor unions can do that also). I am just looking at the current expenses of the company.
The more expenses the less the profit of the company. The less profit the less taxes are to be paid. That is because profit tax is calculated as a percentage of the profit. Last time Amazon paid "$0 for schools, firefighters, infrastructure, research and health-care." That means, society and taxpayers suffer if Amazon increase expenses in improper way. Now let's take a look at where does Amazon spends money to.
Here is a message to happy Amazon customer. Do you think $20 from your Prime package goes to families of Amazon employees? Do you think your money support their health benefits? Do you think your purchase feed their children? Mostly not. Large part of your customer price is wasted by the company on the non-necessary war against its own employees.
Amazon holds semi-monopoly power on some of its markets. That means, customers have no choice. They will buy anyway and they will pay anyway. This results in significant abuse of power from the side of the company. The company abuses its employees. Like a fascist government, it uses its monopoly power to spend money on the security of the government, not on the positive social impact.
Kim Jong-un spends government budget on police and army to protect himself from his own people. At the same time, his people in North Korea are dying as a result of starvation.
Jeff Bezos spends customers money on HR, attorneys and falsifying public opinion. At the same time, his employees commit suicides.
The major difference between Jeff and Kim is body weight. Credit goes to Jeff.
Jeff Bezos knows how unhappy his employees are. It seems like he suffers paranoia: instead of spending money on human working conditions, he buys bulletproof windows for his room.
Amazon spends $millions on HR to protect from the employees
HR takes large share of the company employees. Huge budget is spent on their salaries. Definitely, these are expenses decreasing the profit (and hence tax base). Amazon HR do not calculate salaries, bonuses, taxes or benefits. Other guys (often outsourced) are doing this. Amazon HR is responsible for persecution of employees. For persecution of those who complain about law violations. These employees are not welcome in the company. Company is not interested to be charged with the violation of the law. Thus, Amazon has HR. Overall, work of HR is false at Amazon:
HR perform false "investigations". Their goal is to protect the business from the employee rather than the employee himself.
HR walks the employee through the false "performance improvement plans" (PIP). PIP creates a visibility of "coaching". At the lawsuit, Amazon will tell: "we did not terminate the employee, we gave him a chance and we coached him". In fact, the trick is that PIP is assessed by the same manager who placed the employee on PIP. Say the manager sexually assaulted his female subordinate. To remove the witness, the manager places her on PIP. The subordinate has no chance because the PIP is assessed by the same manager.
HR walks the employee through the false "pivot appeal" program. The employee is given a chance to appeal in front of the independent jury. But he is prohibited to tell to this jury about any violation of the law. Say manager raped his subordinate and then he wants to fire her via the pivot. The girl is prohibited to tell at the appeal that she was raped.
Recently, Amazon even created special "Employee Relationship" department. These are "special forces" of HR to fight against employees. Of course, everything is sponsored by the Amazon customers' money.
Amazon spends $millions on attorneys
When I tried to do a litigation against Amazon, I met the most expensive and professional attorneys firm. In average, I assume their hour costs $500-$1000. 1 hour! How much does 1 hour of Amazon fulfillment center associate cost? $15?
Amazon can use attorneys expenses to decrease its profit (and taxes). But there is a way to decrease these expenses. Of course, every company should protect itself from the lawsuits and in the lawsuits. But there is a way to avoid lawsuits. If the company would change inhuman policies, employees would less likely sue Amazon.
Are attorneys the only legal soldiers of Amazon fighting against its own employees? Nope. Amazon has an army of various professionals to persecute its own employees. E. g. private detectives spying for injured workers.
Amazon wastes money to manipulate public opinion
As a result of outrageous situation in the company, the Amazon reputation is near of the bottom. With such reputation, company has serious problems with hiring employees, especially qualified ones. Thus, the company tries to manipulate the reputation somehow, of course in non-fair way.
Adolf Hitler's government also manipulated social opinion in non-fair ways. It even had special "ministry of propaganda". After that, you blame me for comparison of Bezos and Hitler?
These are armies of volunteers who kindly agreed to help me.
First army is couple of engineers (not including me). I was never modest. But even just one engineer is an army himself, look at me. Definitely, 2 engineers are the army also. They will work on mobile app for unionizing employees. Unfortunately, achieving full independence by peer to peer exchange is not possible here. Thus, standard firebase will be used. If anybody has original ideas for the app - please send to my Facebook. We don't need tech help. But we need ideas rather on the side of interface and social utility. The questions are:
- How can the union power (especially strikes) be realized online?
- How can the union power be realized regardless of the location? Online app means independence from the offline office or fulfillment center site. While offline unions are usually (as far as I understand) organized and restricted locally.
The second army is the video editor and scenario writer. That is for the full time documentary movie about Amazon. We have more than enough footage. But we have less than enough original ideas. Creativity for the movie ideas is not restricted. If you think you know how the movie should look like, give me an idea tip at my Facebook, and your name will be in movie captions forever.
