SEIU Healthcare 775NW is joining the 99% Spring movement that is mobilizing thousands of citizens across the nation and putting the spotlight on income inequality. As part of these actions, our union members are amping up pressure on the Seattle-based corporation, Amazon to treat its workers with dignity and to pay their fair share of taxes.
In front of Amazon headquarters in Seattle, former Amazon warehouse workers Karen Salasky and Jim Herbold told their personal stories of enduring brutal working conditions inside an Amazon warehouse in Pennsylvania.
Conditions inside the warehouse were so bad, that investigative journalists broke the story of the corporation turning the warehouse into a literal sweatshop, forcing employees to work in temperatures that soared past 100 degrees. Instead of improving conditions by installing air conditioning, Amazon stationed paramedics outside the warehouse.
Amazon’s abuse doesn’t stop with brutal working conditions at their warehouses. The company has dodged taxes and continues to support the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an organization with a mission to rig the system for wealthy corporations.
Community activists are vowing to return on May 24, to hold Amazon accountable to the 99% and to tell the giant retailer it’s time for them to pay their fair share of taxes, renounce their support for ALEC, and improve conditions at their sweatshop warehouses.