Challenging Amazon report - Conclusions & recommendations

Amazon’s ‘Everything Store’ front was never just about retailing and today Amazon is much more than the online retailer of everyday goods. As its retailing arm grew, so did Amazon’s ability to gather, analyse and monetise the data of its users, and in doing so Amazon not only cemented its position as gatekeeper to the market place of things, but also enabled its expansion into logistics, technological development and cloud services.

As its scale and scope grows, so does its power. The bigger Amazon has become, the more it has been able to game the system, allowing it to disregard workers’ rights, minimising taxes, circumvent fair competition within its own marketplace and avoid scrutiny of many of its practices. The more it does these things, the more powerful it gets and the more able it is to dominate the various areas it operates in; from its online market place to its increasing presence in the supply of goods and cloud services in the public realm.

As trade unionists, our primary concerns are to ensure that Amazon does not become so powerful that its efforts to trample on workers’ rights are seen as simply a fact of life that cannot be challenged due to the all-encompassing nature of Amazon’s business model.

We believe challenging Amazon’s ability to downgrade workers’ rights requires three things:

1. strong trade unions
2. local and national governments prepared to stand up to Amazon
3. New global rules to ensure workers' rights are protected everywhere

i) Strong trade unions

According to Amazon, it ‘provides some of the most advanced workplaces of their kind in the world, with industry-leading pay, processes and systems to ensure the wellbeing and safety of all employees’[1]. But as we have outlined in this report, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that is not the case.

We have seen that strong trade unions have been able to improve rights for workers at Amazon and elsewhere, especially during the Covid-19 crisis. In Spain, France, Italy, Germany and many more, union organising has won essential health and safety protections for workers at Amazon that they otherwise would not have had.

If Amazon genuinely wants to ensure the wellbeing and safety of all its employees, then we urge Amazon to voluntarily recognise a union in all its operations.

However, Amazon has shown only hostility to workers’ efforts to organise. For example, the GMB trade union shared with us testimonies of workers who are terrified to even talk publicly about their experiences for fear of being fired. Stronger labour laws are therefore needed to bring them to the table.

In the UK that means:

• the law must be changed to allow unions to access workplaces, so that Amazon can no longer keep unions out. The upcoming employment bill is a good opportunity to introduce this legislation.
• we need new sectoral bargaining arrangements, which bring unions and employers round the table to negotiate a minimum set of standards within the sector. As online retail becomes prevalent, we cannot allow Amazon to set the standard for the sector.

ii) Local and national governments prepared to stand up to Amazon

Many local governments have set out employment charters showing how they aim to promote decent work (see box 5). And national government has made several commitments to promoting good work as a legitimate public policy aim. Its response to the Taylor Review of working practices states that good work should be fair, decent and with a realistic scope for development and fulfilment.[2] And it is committed to Goal 8 of the UN sustainable development goals, which seeks to promote “sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all“ and defines decent work as:

“productive work for women and men in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity. Decent work involves opportunities for work that: is productive and delivers a fair income; provides security in the workplace and social protection for workers and their families; offers prospects for personal development and encourages social integration; gives people the freedom to express their concerns, to organize and to participate in decisions that affect their lives; and guarantees equal opportunities and equal treatment for all”[3].

These commitments mean that governments should be wary of propping up Amazon through government spending, when the Amazon’s business model is built on downgrading workers’ rights.

Challenging Amazon at local level

In some cases, local government’s direct relationship with Amazon gives it an opportunity to promote decent work directly. Anywhere there are Amazon facilities such as warehouses or offices, local government should be clear that as a minimum decent work includes allowing a union direct access to the company – and a commitment to transparency about the results.

Amazon should not only be expected to allow union access and reporting but where employment charters or good work standards already exist, they should commit to all obligations and demonstrate that they are meeting those commitments. As we saw with some of our Freedom of Information requests, where there have been employment and skills commitments between local authorities and Amazon, it is unclear if Amazon has provided evidence of meeting its commitments or whether there is the transparency that would allow local authorities to be able to monitor progress.

In addition, where local authorities draw up employment charters and good work standards, they should include a commitment to the right of unions to access workplaces.

However, it became clear through our Freedom of Information requests that local authorities do not always have direct oversight or access to information about who is going to be occupying land within their jurisdiction and therefore not as much scope to influence employment rights. This is clearly a barrier for local authorities and more consideration needs to be given to how the planning process can also be used as a tool to promote decent work and give authorities the ability to lay down the rules before companies like Amazon come to town. 

In other cases, local governments are procuring goods from Amazon, through the marketplace or through contracts for web services. In these cases, the relationship is less direct, but local government spending is still going to support Amazon’s exploitative model.

But reliance on Amazon is not inevitable. Social value procurement can be used to strengthen local economies and empower local people. Community wealth building aims to stop wealth leaking out of communities by emphasising the purchase of local goods and services and favouring suppliers that will put the benefits of local spending into the hands of local people. Using procurement in this way ensures that money spent locally is retained in the local economy and used to achieve wider social and economic objectives. Wherever possible, local government should use this as an alternative to Amazon that supports keeping jobs and wealth in the local community.

Councils such as Salford, Newham and Preston have sought to use community wealth building initiatives to maximise the amount public bodies spend in their local area to help develop local supply chains, diversify provision through supporting local cooperatives, community organisations and small businesses– as well as promoting in-house provision of services.

These kinds of approaches can offer better value for money than Amazon, especially if we take a broader definition of value for money that takes account of the wider social and economic benefits generated. Though Amazon may seem to offer a cheap and simplified approach to purchasing goods and equipment, this should be weighed against the potential benefits to the local economy of choosing local supply chains and businesses that support workers’ rights.

Community wealth building also encourages local authorities to create and cultivate local suppliers where they are not readily available. However, where councils conclude that Amazon is the only viable supplier for a product, an alternative option is to seek to build social value requirements such as decent work and union recognition into procurement contracts.  

This means:

• Councils should review their commissioning and procurement strategies to ensure that they align with a strong public interest case, including support for good work and community wealth building, and take a more holistic approach to value for money that includes promoting decent work and maximizing the impact of public spending in the local community.
• Any council undertaking to procure goods or services from Amazon should explore the full potential for inserting social value requirements and establish effective mechanisms for monitoring and measuring the performance of the company against those objectives, as appropriate to the contract in question.

Challenging Amazon at national level

As set out above, one important change government could make is to introduce new trade union laws which give workers a better chance of challenging unfair employment conditions.

As most government spending with Amazon is for web services and is driven by central government, it must consider the broader implications of supporting Amazon’s exploitative business model. This is in line with existing commitments to use public policy as a means of driving decent work. In addition, the government’s new policy on delivering social value through s commercial activities, announced in September this year, states that:

“Social value should be explicitly evaluated in all central government procurement, where the requirements are related and proportionate to the subject-matter of the contract, rather than just ‘considered’ as currently required under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012”

Themes that must be considered include Covid-19 recovery; tackling economic inequality; fighting climate change; equal opportunity; and wellbeing[1].

It is essential that social value in procurement is embedded and does not continue to be a tick box exercise or easily gamed by organisations bidding for contracts, as has often been the case to date[2].

Government must also be prepared to stand up to attempts by Amazon and other big tech companies to become ‘too big to fail’. That means government must:

• Support efforts to ensure fair digital taxation through international negotiations at the OECD on a global tax regime.
• Commit to ensuring a fair, proportionate and modern business rates system that works for all sectors and reflects the changing nature of business, particularly retailing and does not unfairly advantage online retailing.
• Ensure that the new Digital Markets inquiry and taskforce, carried out by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) - which intends to “enforce a code of conduct to ensure that platforms with a position of market power do not engage in exploitative or exclusionary practices, or practices likely to reduce trust and transparency, and to impose fines if necessary” – includes workers’ rights as a key consideration within this code of conduct.
• Oppose proposals at the WTO to include ecommerce in trade negotiations, which campaigners say would increase the power of big tech over workers and make it harder to enforce labour laws.

iii) New global rules are needed to ensure workers’ rights are protected everywhere

Trade unions and local and national governments can all act to stick up for workers’ rights in the face of the efforts of companies like Amazon to downgrade them. But as a global company, it is only a set of strong global rules that will ensure that a race to the bottom on workers’ rights does not become a global phenomenon, and that all companies are competing on a level and fair playing field where the skills and talents of their workers, not the capacity of bosses to exploit them, determine their success.

There are several current proposals for international reform which would check the power of Amazon and similar global companies. These include:

• Proposals to reform the global tax regime and ensure the fair taxation of digital platforms.
• Legislate to challenge the anti-competitive practices and monopoly power of Amazon and other big tech companies.
• Challenging the WTO proposals on the digital trade chapters.
• Implementing the ILO centenary declaration proposals on the future of work, including:
• Establishing a universal labour guarantee and floor of rights.
• Expanding the time sovereignty of workers, giving them greater control of their working lives.
• Ensuring collective representation.
• Harnessing and managing technology, including establishing an international governance system for digital labour platforms and regulation of data use and algorithmic accountability.
• Reshaping business incentive structures to deliver better and fairer outcomes for workers and the public good.
• Incentives to promote investment in decent and sustainable work, with a focus on micro and small and medium enterprises.

Change at Amazon

We are clear: there is no reason why Amazon should be allowed to continue with their exploitative business model. We urge them to do better on all fronts and commit to decent, safe and secure work throughout their operations.

• Amazon should allow workers to meet and organise effectively and uphold the right to unionise. No worker should ever be fired or discriminated against for organising or raising concerns.
• Amazon should allow unions to access to all its workplaces.
• Amazon should ensure all its workforce (whether employees or contractors) are being paid at least the real living wage or union negotiated rates for the job they are doing.
• Amazon should provide secure work and not use zero hours contracts and bogus self-employment.
• Amazon should follow all health and safety laws and ensure extra measures are implemented to protect workers from the additional risks brought on by the pandemic across all their operations.
• Amazon should recognise and work with unions to ensure surveillance technology is only used for legitimate reasons and determine targets that do not violate workers’ rights and conditions whilst achieving a fair outcome for the business.
• Amazon should consult recognised trade unions and reach collective agreement before the introduction of new AI technology, electronic monitoring or surveillance in the workplace.
• Amazon should pay their fair share of tax.

If Amazon won’t do better, then unions and governments at all levels must work together to make sure that they do.