Humphrey McQueen dissects multi-billionaire Bezos’ Amazon
Amazon with Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla and Alphabet are massive technology behemoths worth collectively $13.2 trillion. Together they control the whole spectra of digitalised products, on-line product sales, data, computers, semi-conductors, batteries , electric cars and technology.
With people’s dependence on digital products and services; their reach into peoples lives world-wide is total. Digitalisation has caused massive corporation cost-saving and out-sourcing of employment to the detriment of hundreds of millions of customers and employees.
Offices are empty as customers aided by a on-line chat-bots, attempt to pay bills, sort out problems with services or products. The winner is the IT company or the downsized corporation with fewer workers and a greater profit. While you are tapping away, on-line artificial intelligence is quietly saving all your data for sale to many interested firms.
Amazon has taken digitalisation to new stratospheric levels of worker exploitation in their warehouses they call “fulfillment centres”. McQueen describes how workers are virtually tied to a digitally controlled cart to collect products for sale, packaging and delivery. This ensures the maximum extraction of surplus value to be squeezed out of people employed in these workhouses -Time is money.
As corporations like Amazon rampage across the world exploiting workers, crushing small businesses by cartel practices, their ties to government poses a greater problem. Amazon has been given the rights to provide top secret storage of Australian defence and intelligence data for the Australian Signals Directorate.
The Australian Labor Government allows yet more supine integration of Australia into the jaws of U.S. imperialism. It is time we stood on our own two feet to fight for Australian independence and sovereignty from the likes of Amazon and all the rest of the multinational and local monopoly corporations. It’s time we defend and extend the hard-fought for wages and conditions of Australian workers.
