Episode 49: Time to ban Amazon!

EU Watchdog Radio

Corporate Europe Observatory and Counter Balance

News, Politics

5 • 1 Ratings

🗓️ 13 February 2024

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amazon is a frequent visitor to the EU Parliament. In January alone, it had nine meetings with MEPs. But when it refused to appear before the Employment Committee on a hearing on crucial issues concerning working conditions within its warehouses, it made MEPs from all party groups extremelly angry, and rightly so. On 5 February, MEPs on the European Parliament’s Employment Committee sent an official letter to Roberta Metsola, the European Parliament President, urging the withdrawal of lo...

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening.
0:06.0	You're listening to EU, man on the moon, motion.
0:25.2	You're listening to EU Watchdog Radio.
0:26.5	Hi, welcome.
0:31.4	I'm Joanna Lossan, Combs Officer at Corporate Europe Observatory or CEO.
0:36.9	In this episode of EU Watchdog Radio, I will talk to my colleague, Bram Vrancan,
0:39.0	about why the members of the European Parliament seem to want to kick out lobbyists from the tech giant Amazon.
0:44.3	Thank you, Bram. Can you tell me, like, in short, what is wrong with Amazon?
0:52.3	What is not wrong with Amazon is the question. This is a huge
0:57.4	company and it's active in so many sectors. But first of all, I think what's really wrong with
1:04.1	Amazon is the working conditions, which are completely horrible. Workers have a very high rate of injuries,
1:14.6	they're under a lot of pressure,
1:16.6	there is almost no time for breaks,
1:19.6	there is very, very intrusive surveillance
1:23.6	of any step that a worker does.
1:26.6	Even measuring the time a worker takes from going to the
1:33.2	entrance of a warehouse to their working spot, this is all put into numbers and is used to pressure
1:42.3	workers to work harder.
1:45.0	But there are so many other aspects which are problematic.
1:49.0	There is the target that advertising the company does.
1:53.0	There is the huge impact on environment, the huge carbon emissions,
1:59.0	but also, for example, it's monopoly position, which it uses to maintain
	...

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