ONT6 Update 7-2018

July 19th, 2018:

An Open Letter To Amazon.com!

This is an open letter from an Amazon.com tier 1 Associate who works at the Ontario 6 Fulfillment Center in Moreno Valley, California. My name is Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby) and I am demanding respect from my employer which will happen sooner or later and so I believe that we cannot, will not be stopped! And it is concerning this subject that I would like to address my fellow Associates, Process Assistants, Area Managers, Operations managers, Senior Operations Managers, General Manager and all other Amazon.com operatives around the globe: For your approval or not!

Also, I wish to address anyone who believes or wishes to believe that people have a fundamental right to happiness even in the workplace! Furthermore, it is my utmost belief that a person cannot, will not experience happiness if they are cold and hungry, in need of shelter or clothing, desiring company, love and companionship; in need of those basic requirements to sustain a healthy if not happy existence.

In which case, it will become necessary that people form a common front in order to gain those things which make life happy, healthy and wise; reasonable to suggest that no matter our background, place of birth, nationality, color of ones skin, religion, creed, sexual preference or any other thing which might cause one to mistrust another must be stricken from our hearts and minds! We stand together to make our demands! Not our requests! But our demands!

Here there is a world apart, unlike everything else, with laws of its own, its own dress, its own manners and customs, and here is the house of the living dead- life as elsewhere and a people apart.

–Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We cannot be a people apart or we will be condemned to an existence of the living dead (where) life as elsewhere and a people apart! We must not be separated from one another or we will be subject to laws, rules, regulations and all those clothing’s, manners and customs which continue to disconnect us from one another; which tear at the very fabric of our natures which shout for unity; cry for justice! Life is not elsewhere as it is here in our need to share with one another!

And share with one another we must as we fight; as we struggle to maintain our hope in a better world, a brighter tomorrow that is not divided by those who would isolate one from the other as more easily to control the individual alienated from the collective. We stand together demanding our right to life, liberty and happiness! We rally one another to a cause whereas we believe that all are entitled to the wondrous elements of life in the here and now! Therefore I shout:

AWAKEN!

We shall awaken from the darkness of ignorance as the call for action goes forth! Please, be ready for confrontation as those who are awakened seek greater advancement if not development in what happens to them in all facets of this life: The workplace, government, civil if not human rights, our own communities; those places when and wherever we gather together as individuals yet communally committed to one another in hope and its aspirations.

In the scales of justice, we seek a greater voice in all things which transpire in our lives, once again; in the workplace, government, civil if not human rights; our own communities where we share with everyone the desire to be free while having a voice to cry in unison: Awaken!

Let’s take a case in point! In article by Eric London this was stated concerning the CEO and founder of Amazon.com, Jeff Bezos:

$3,000 per second for Bezos, poverty wages for Amazon workers!

Eric London:

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth surpassed $150 billion on Monday, making him the richest person in modern world history. The magnitude of such a sum is difficult to comprehend. Its real meaning emerges when juxtaposed with the social position of Amazon’s 500,000 workers.

Jeff Bezos has made $50 billion in 2018. The $255 million he has made each day of the year equals the annual salaries of over 10,000 Amazon workers in the US. The amount Bezos has made per second in 2018, $2,950, is more than the annual salary of an Amazon worker in India, $2,796.

In five days of 2018, Bezos made as much money as the combined income of every Amazon fulfillment center worker in the world in 2017. If Bezos’ wealth were divided equally among Amazon’s employees, each would get a check for $300,000. In the time it will take the average reader to read these five bullet points, Jeff Bezos will have made another $70,000, seven times the global annual average income of $10,000.

The existence of such fortunes exposes the oligarchic character of American and global society. Under capitalism, Bezos and billionaires like him dominate the political parties, select who is elected to public office, determine the policies of the world’s governments, and dictate “public opinion” through their control over academic institutions and the media. Here too, Bezos is a prime example. He purchased the Washington Post in 2013 for $250 million—less than what he now makes in a day.

Behind great wealth there are great social crimes. Bezos has made his billions through the ruthless exploitation of the Amazon workforce, which has more than doubled in size since 2015, when Bezos’s wealth was $60 billion. Amazon has hired roughly 300,000 new workers since 2015, allowing Bezos to pocket the surplus value generated by the labor of a veritable army of the exploited.

Amazon has gained a competitive edge by introducing 21st century methods to squeeze every last drop of sweat from its workers, who wear monitoring devices that measure how hard they are working and who are forced to walk or run up to 14 miles per day. Injuries are common, and deaths and suicides also take place with regularity. The National Council for Occupational Safety found Amazon among the most dangerous workplaces in the US.

Amazon is deeply implicated in the crimes of the US government, both in its imperialist wars abroad and in its Gestapo-like attack on democratic rights at home.

The company hosts the web servers for the US military and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and it sells its cloud service to Palantir, a data analytics firm that provides software used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to conduct raids and detain immigrants. In May, the ACLU reported that Amazon also sells Orwellian facial recognition software to police departments and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

Opposition to this corporate giant is emerging, including from within the company itself. In June, an undisclosed number of Amazon employees published a letter demanding the company halt its involvement in mass deportation and police surveillance. “This will be another powerful tool for the surveillance state, and ultimately serve to harm the most marginalized,” the letter reads, citing IBM’s involvement in providing Hitler with the infrastructure used to murder millions in concentration camps.

This year has also seen the development of a series of strikes at Amazon facilities worldwide. In Spain, Poland and Germany, workers’ anger over low wages, “permanent temporary” work and brutal working conditions is near universal, forcing the trade unions to call limited protest strikes to coincide with “Prime Day”—a 36-hour sale period from July 16 to 17.

The trade unions’ goal in calling the Prime Day protest strikes is the exact opposite of the aspirations of the workers participating in them. In Spain, the union has kept the strike to a single fulfillment center. In Germany, the bulk of workers chose not to participate in a one-day strike called by the Verdi union, knowing that Verdi regularly calls isolated strikes that will not impact corporate profits. In Poland, the union has called only a partial slow-down of work in order to block a broader strike.

While the workers want to shut down Amazon’s supply chains and achieve massive increases in wages and significant improvements in working conditions, the unions have admitted from the outset that they are organizing the strikes as limited protests that will have no impact on Amazon’s supply chains.

And while the workers aspire to unite in a common international struggle with their co-workers across national boundaries, the unions by their nature keep workers tied to “their own” nation-states and governments.

At Amazon and across all workplaces worldwide, the trade unions serve as an obstacle, not a conduit, for the development of the class struggle. Their leaderships, both in terms of political function and social composition, are hostile to the working class members whose dues help pay their salaries. The trade unions, through the relentless suppression of the class struggle at Amazon and elsewhere, are responsible for making Jeff Bezos’ fortune possible.

In their struggles against the transnational corporations, workers must throw off the shackles of the trade unions and construct new, rank-and-file factory organizations.

These factory committees must fight to establish lines of communication between workers at different workplaces, not to isolate workers at each plant. They must be based on the principle that the interests of workers and capitalists are incompatible, not on “cooperation” between workers and management. They must foster the highest degree of democratic discussion, planning, and debate among the workers themselves. They must be based on an understanding that the working class is an international social force and that workers are powerless when divided based on nationality.

The suppression of the class struggle has produced unprecedented levels of social inequality. In the United States, three people own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the population—160 million people. Worldwide, the five wealthiest own as much as the poorest half—3.6 billion people. Outside of the wealthiest 5 to 10 percent of the world’s population, the masses of people face levels of economic hardship that vary only in degrees of extremity.

The existence of such extreme levels of inequality raises the urgent need for socialist revolution. Society cannot afford the capitalist system. The trillions of dollars that sit in corporate bank vaults and in the trust funds of the super wealthy must be expropriated and spent on massive international programs to provide water, food, education, culture, housing and infrastructure to every corner of the world.

The international integration of the world economy that under capitalism serves as a source of conflict, war and competition will become, under socialism, a mechanism for distributing resources from each region of the world according to its ability to each region according to the needs of its population. Amazon, with its complex logistical web spanning every continent and dozens of countries, will be transformed into a public utility to ship medicine, building material, food and disaster relief across the world.

Neither Bezos nor the capitalist class will give up their wealth without a fight. The working class must prepare for the coming class battles by joining the fight for socialism.

Please judge for yourselves! Are you being compensated for your labor as you feel you should be? Are you bringing home enough income to provide for yourself and your loved ones? Are you given the respect that you as a worker, who by the way, in point of fact does the actual work of taking care of the customers of Amazon.com? Does Jeff Bezos sweet it out day in day out in the worldwide Amazon Fulfillment Centers? No! You do! I do! Together we can change this appalling, horrendous situation!

By uniting together in numbers which cannot be ignored, even by the Spin Machine of Amazon.com; we can change this situation while altering how business is done in today’s economic reality! We deserve better! And we know that it is up to us, we the workers, to correct this repulsive injustice committed against the workforce of the companies of this world who exploit our labor!

We will not stop!

Awaken!

This is a battle-cry to any and all Amazon.com workers who desire a better working environment as to benefit them and their families as to wages, benefits, a right to a say in their place of employment; a guarantee to be free from the threat of the lose of employment: RESPECT! Without which we can never consider ourselves human beings! More-to-this! We would be nothing but cattle in the marketplace! Data in the stream which’s online retail!

I am calling for a global walkout of all Amazon.com worksites; a general strike if you will! United we will never be defeated! The “so-called” leadership of Amazon.com truly believers that IT, TheAmazon, is too big to be wrong! They are not! And it is this very belief that we must shatter as to better our condition as workers in this world; workers at TheAmazon! More to come later! To be certain: We will prevail and Amazon.com will be changed for the better!

Sincerely,

Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby).

July 15th, 2018:

An Open Letter To Amazon.com!

This is an open letter from an Amazon.com tier 1 Associate who works at the Ontario 6 Fulfillment Center in Moreno Valley, California. My name is Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby) and I am demands respect from my employer which will happen sooner or later and so I believe that we cannot, will not be stopped! And it is concerning this subject that I would like to address my fellow Associates, Process Assistants, Area Managers, Operations managers, Senior Operations Managers, General Manager and all other Amazon.com operatives around the globe: For your approval or not!

Also, I wish to address anyone who believes or wishes to believe that people have a fundamental right to happiness even in the workplace! Furthermore, it is my utmost belief that a person cannot, will not experience happiness if they are cold or hungry, in need of shelter or clothing, desiring company, love and companionship; in need of those basic requirements to sustain a healthy if not happy existence.

In which case, it will become necessary that people form a common front in order to gain those things which make life happy, healthy and wise; reasonable to suggest that not matter our background, place of birth, nationality, color of ones skin, religion, creed, sexual preference or any other thing which might cause one to mistrust another must be stricken from our hearts and minds! We stand together to make our demands! Not our requests! But our demands!

Here there is a world apart, unlike everything else, with laws of its own, its own dress, its own manners and customs, and here is the house of the living dead- life as elsewhere and a people apart.

–Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We cannot be a people apart or we will be condemned to an existence of the living dead (where) life as elsewhere and a people apart! We cannot be separated away from each other or we will be subject to laws, rules, regulations and all those clothing’s, manners and customs which separate us from one another; which tear at the very fabric of our natures which shout for unity; cry for justice! Life is not elsewhere as it is here in our need to share with one another!

AWAKEN!

We shall awaken from the darkness of ignorance as the call for action goes forth! Please, be ready for confrontation as those who are awaken seek greater advancement if not development in what happens to them in all facets of this life: The workplace, government, civil if not human rights, our own communities; those places when and wherever we gather together as individuals yet communally committed to one another in hope and its aspirations.

Awaken!

In our life as Amazon.com workers, we are bound in a jail of hard tedious labor for little pay and more so, modest respect in merely having a say in the terms of our employment! We are therefore no different than you in your struggle for respect because of the color of your skin! The way in which you communicate! Your belief or non-belief in God! All those things which you hold dearest in this world! We are so very similar as we fight for our right to be who we are while holding true to those things in which we believe! Truly, there’s no cage that might contain a heart which seeks freedom and its justice! No chains ever forged that might keep a people from their goals or inspiration. Be it a government or a multi-national corporation; an online retailer headquartered in Seattle, Washington! There’s neither room nor reason for fear as we are together in this drive to justice!

Awaken!

Whenever I am downcast as to my situation in this life of want and need; whenever I am in pain and have no consolation or any other thing to hold onto; I am united with those whose feelings are just the same! I am able to hear the cry of the other who wants, desperately needs, solace which I can give even in my state of sorrow and anguish. We are therefore, in spite of our differences, the same!

Awaken!

Out there in the great big beautiful world, we march together while singing our fight song keeping our eyes on the prize, holding on! I fight today for better pay, benefits, respect in the workplace! You fight for the right to live in this land! Another fights merely to walk down the street in their own neighborhood unmolested by the civil authorities! Some fight here while others fight there! Wherever we are we are together! None of us is alone because we are one! We are many!

Awaken!

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” was shouted from the mountain tops! Scream now and yell load! I am a human being and I will be respected! Be it on the street! In my home! At my job site working for Amazon.com! Anywhere that I am, I will always be: I am! No one can take that from another person! No one has the right to degrade another human being! We are one! We are many!

Awaken!

My prize today is a vote for unity! A vote for the unity here at Amazon.com! Your prize is the dignity to walk freely in your own neighborhood! Some others dignity is to be free to worship as they please! To be different yet secure in their person! To be fed! To have a home and family! To be able to provide for one another! To be: I am! I have dignity for I am a human being!

Awaken!

Hold my hand while I hold yours! Grasp my belief in the dignity and freedom afforded those willing to claim their inheritance! Take your stand and hold tightly to those aligned with you in this struggle for respect! For a life worth living in the here and now!

Awaken!

Wherever you are I am also there! We are never alone as we are tied together by our struggle to be human beings! For assurance, carry the love from town to town as every struggle to be free is the same struggle that is waged wherever people realize themselves while demanding their potential!

Awaken!

My prize is the contentment on the faces of those who have appreciated if not understood the need to be free! The need to fight for what is right! The desire to have what my family and I require to be happy if not healthy in this world. We have a right to be this way! Free in our person and that of those we care for as I will never give up in this struggle called life!

Awaken!

May I never lose my way to the prize! Hold on! May the wilderness of fear be stricken from my mind! Hold on! May the error of timidity be lost and never returned as I stand-up for what I believe! Hold on! May I always be free to ask for help when I am lost! Hold on! May you come to me asking what I might do for you!

Awaken!

In my heart I hold all human persons to be sacred! In my mind I desire no tension with another human being! In my life I am at peace with all those I encounter. In practice I reserve the right to stand up and fight for those things I and my family requires to be, once again; healthy, happy and wise! FURTHERMORE! I demand my due in this world and will battle to the end in order that justice prevails! In order that I and my fellow citizens of this world know peace and harmony! Know that we need not turn against one another but that our fight is with those who would deny us our right to life! Our right to what we need to live in the here and now!

Awaken!

My prize is to love and adore my family and friends in our world community of live and let live in the here and now!

Awaken!

Ain't been to heaven but I been told

Streets up there are paved with gold

The ending lines from a song often played during the Civil Rights Movement in the United States where the legendary American folk singer, civil rights activist, environmental warrior, Union agitator Pete Seeger cried out for freedom from oppression for all peoples everywhere: Now! And as to the proposition whether or not there is a heaven or a hell, I consider the question pointless! My heaven is my family as my hell is the inability to provide for them and what they need to thrive not just survive in the here and now!

Awaken!

This is a battle-cry to an and all Amazon.com workers who desire a better working environment as to benefit them and their families as to wages, benefits, a right to a say in their place of employment; a guarantee to be free from the threat of the lose of employment: RESPECT! Without which we can never consider ourselves human beings! More-to-this! We would be nothing but cattle in the marketplace! Data in the stream which’s online retail!

Sincerely,

Mark Oglesby (login: moglesby)