Alan Macleod – Mint Press News Feb 3, 2021
It has been a turbulent 24 hours for retail giant Amazon. First, the company’s founder (and world’s richest individual) Jeff Bezos announced that he would step down as CEO. Then, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) ruled that the company had illegally stolen more than $61 million worth of customer tips meant for its delivery drivers.
Under their contracts, Amazon drivers were supposed to make between $18 and $25 per hour and keep all their tips. However, since at least 2016, the company had been secretly confiscating tips customers sent through an app, using their contributions to reduce their own wage payouts, meaning they were swindling both customers and employees. “In total, Amazon stole nearly one-third of drivers’ tips to pad its own bottom line,” said FTC Commissioner Rohit Chopra.
Unlike corporate crime cases in other nations, Amazon will merely be required to pay back the money it took from employees. Thus, it will face no negative consequences, except a possible public relations backlash due to bad press. Yet, instead of grilling Amazon, the media appear to be working hard to run defense for it, downplaying the nature of the crime in their headlines.
Covering for corporate crimes
The word “steal” was noticeably absent from much of the reporting, despite the fact that the original Reuters report used the word in its title — a direct reflection of the FTC’s ruling. Many newspapers instead decided to go with “withhold” instead:
“Amazon to Pay Fine for Withholding Tips From Delivery Drivers” (New York Times),
“Amazon will pay $61.7 million to delivery drivers after withholding tips” (Los Angeles Times),
“Amazon agrees to multi-million settlement for withholding driver tips,” (Pittsburgh Post Gazette),
Amazon ordered to pay $61.7m fine for withholding drivers’ tips,” (The Independent),
“Amazon to pay $61.7M settlement after FTC says it withheld some tips,” (Washington Examiner).
Other outlets went with words like “pocketing” (Financial Times, BBC), “keeping” (CBS News), “shorting” (Courthouse News), or “shortchanging” (Washington Post).
Even worse, many more framed the news as a mere allegation, despite the fact that the FTC had made a formal ruling. Forbes, for instance, led with the headline “Amazon Will Pay $61.7 Million Settlement After Allegedly Withholding Tips From Delivery Drivers.” Others (Daily Caller, Daily Mail) did the same. Meanwhile, in a tweet on the news, Vox claimed that (emphasis added) “Amazon will pay $61.7 million in a settlement over allegations that the company used customer tips to subsidize the hourly wages of some delivery drivers.” Thus, the fact that Amazon had been caught stealing was watered down into a claim that it was merely “subsidizing” “some” of its employees’ wages.
Perhaps the worst offender was business and tech news site ZDNet, whose headline was “Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle Flex driver tip dispute with FTC,” which obscured the matter into a foggy and very technical sounding financial dispute. Only a very small number of outlets, including Slate and The Huffington Post, echoed the FTC’s decision by using the word “stole” in their headlines.
Reading past the headlines
Framing is an important concept in media, as the words chosen encourage readers to interpret news in a certain manner. For instance, this week, reporting on the same healthcare issue, CNN framed it as “Biden signs executive orders expanding healthcare access,” while Fox News presented went with “Biden signs order on far-left health priorities.” The first primes readers to see the move as improving inclusivity while the latter fits into a “radical socialist takeover of government” narrative.
Perhaps more importantly, in this 280-character media landscape, the majority of people do not read past the headline, even before sharing content, making accurate titles particularly important in conveying information on news and current events. Indeed, one article in Science Post with the title “Study: 70% of Facebook users only read the headline of science stories before commenting” features one paragraph of information before descending into “lorem ipsum” gibberish text has been shared 193,000 times, mostly on Facebook itself (although it is not clear how many people are sharing it as a joke).
Thus, the effect of the inaccurate titles has been to bury a story about massive wage theft. Wage theft is a massive problem in the United States. A 2017 study from the Economic Policy Institute across ten U.S. states found that 2.4 million minimum wage workers were being defrauded out of an average of $64 per week, equating to $8 billion annual losses. For many, their employer is far more likely to steal from them than a masked robber. Yet this is rarely the sort of violation that “tough on crime” politicians have in mind when they deploy that rhetoric. And when the public thinks of crime, wage theft is rarely high on the list, thanks, in no small part, to how the media downplays corporate crime where the rich steal from the poor.
Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.org, The Guardian, Salon, The Grayzone, Jacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.
ALL employers steal from their workers.
Even the more “generous” employers here in the UK only pay their workers around 5% of the wealth they bring into the company. I call that theft.
I once worked for a company that admitted they made enough to cover the payroll in the first 15 minutes of the working week. That means they were stealing 160 times what they paid the people who created that wealth.
Multiply that by the number of employees.
Imagine the lifestyle we could ALL enjoy if employers were made to pay their workers just 50% of gross profits. The employers would still be obscenely wealthy, but the people who create that wealth would no longer be living in near-poverty, barely able to afford the essentials of life.
Half as much for them and ten times as much for us. I’d call that fair, or at least, fairer than the present system.
Now they all start screaming “overheads”, but individuals have their own “overheads” in the form of rent/mortgage, heating, lighting, getting to and from work, trying to feed a family, and collectively these come to far more than the costs incurred in running a business.
Jews are money-mad vermin and wreck any country they enter as a mass. Hard luck, America, but you cannot say you were not warned. You now talk their money-grubbing language, don’t you.
When ‘everything’ is still not enough.
Although like NEVER having donned a mask, anywhere, for any thing, I have never used Amazon, but I obviously stand alone.
Very alone.
Barney said:
“Imagine the lifestyle we could ALL enjoy if employers were made to pay their workers just 50% of gross profits. The employers would still be obscenely wealthy, but the people who create that wealth would no longer be living in near-poverty, barely able to afford the essentials of life.”
Something I’ve said all along. And of course, you’re met with the usual:
“It’s the owners who create the companies and thus the industry that makes the people their money. They should be entitled to the high profits they make.”
Again, more nonsense.
Let’s take one of the biggest franchises – McDonalds. The wealth that McDonald’s makes is as a result of its staff, working for a pittance, in their many shops: “According to the McDonald’s Corporation website as of January 2020, McDonald’s has locations in over 100 countries. More than 38,000 restaurants around the world serve 69 million people every day.”
How much money would McDonalds be worth if it was just the CEO’s and the board working in a city shop or roadside/motorway restaurant? The answer, of course is absolutely nothing. So instead, the CEO’s and board, make their high salaries at the expense of the worker. But just how much? “McDonald’s CEO Makes an Hour What the Average Worker Makes a Year.”
Well there you go! And what precisely does the CEO do that actually justifies that horrifically huge salary compared to the grunt on the shop floor? My guess, pretty much F*CK ALL! The decor within is pretty bog standard that you don’t need much common sense to create. The menu is awful, meaning you don’t have to be a good cook to create it. All the management of food production, factory production, design, transport etc, will be done by lesser management, on far less than the CEO and members of the board. It’s just a case of “snouts in the trough” as they epitomize the pigs in Orwell’s Animal Farm, doing nothing, while living off of the hard work of animals on the farm.
Best case scenario? Everyone has their own land, which they farm and grow food. If they want clothes they learn to make them, or barter with someone that will, in that village. You get rid of money altogether and in doing so, you get rid of the money men and in doing so, you get rid of the Jew. You knock down the cities. You rebuild the villages and towns and you bring society back to what it was and should always have been – a community of people of that nation, living in harmony with one another. Essentially, what you’re looking at is the ‘Shire’ in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. Everyone works for themselves and the very concept of working for others disappears for good. This is exactly the opposite kind of society TPTB want, because not only would they have no power but they’d actually have to get off their backsides and work, for once in their lives.
I couldn’t agree more, White Elephant. It’s what I’m hoping we can get back to after the (already started) “great die off” when there won’t be room for parasites as we’re rebuilding our villages.
Just two points though. If we don’t have something resembling “government”, criminals will eventually impose one, and the same with “money”.
I’d suggest a local council, made up of volunteers from each local community to each serve a single, non-renewable one year term. As in Qaddafi’s Libya, these councils could supply one volunteer each to serve on a regional council, with as many layers as needed all the way up to a central administration (NOT a “government”).
This central administration would have responsibility for the few National projects we might consider desirable, but would “own” nothing and have no power over the people. They’d serve, not dominate. Local justice would be administered locally.
NO OUTCASTS though. I’m convinced that’s how the present corrupt system came about. Villagers were too compassionate to kill wrongdoers or incarcerate them for life, so they were driven out. Over time, these “outcasts” formed marauding gangs intent on revenge, eventually merging with other gangs until they were powerful enough to take control of the entire country. We can’t let that happen again.
Money is another issue, but I don’t have any real answers. Certainly the villagers would have no need for it, but as I’ve said, if we don’t have a monetary system, sooner or later criminals will impose one.
Steal from an employer and it’s called theft. Steal from an employee and it’s called a business model.
Somebody once said, “When a billionaire tells you he earned his fortune through hard work you should ask him, ‘Whose?'”
“Behind every fortune lies a great crime.” Honore de Balzac.
Barney,
Essentially, it’s reversing everything that’s happened in society over the last 350+ years.
The objective of the New World Order was centralizing government, thus control. So what you do is you end the government immediately, like that, finished. All instantly out of a job, pending trial for treason. Their agenda is once they control the governments, they then create unions (European, African, North, Central and South American, Asian, Australasian). And then from there all leaders form the world government, in Israel. By ending government, you end that also. (*** See at end)
You end the reign of monarchy, simply because monarchy has proven it doesn’t give a sh*t about the nation, instead having bred with wealthy Jews, going against the will of God. They go to, arrested, pending trial for treason.
You end the judiciary, as it worked for the monarchy along with the police and the armed forces. Wars only happen because of wealthy Jews, controlling governments, who order them. No chess pieces to play a game of chess = no chess. Again, all police and judiciary arrested, imprisoned, pending trial for treason.
So who arrests them and who tries them if you remove the police and the judiciary? Simple. You create a police force, from people within your village, of the nation. You do the same with the judiciary. In the bin goes Roman canon law, along with law of the sea. Thus, legality is ended in an instant. The wise people of that village preside as judges, with local members of the community as the jury. There will be no lawyers and all accused defend themselves. The crimes will be brought forth by the court, along with evidence and the defendant defends him/herself. If they lose, clearly in a treason trial, either public execution, or life imprisonment. Prisons will resort back to catacombs of old. They will be deep underground. Each cell, small, damp, cold, a sewer running through one end, with only four walls. No toilet, no wash basin, no bed, no comfort, no TV, no books, no light, nothing. They’re left there to rot. They’re never allowed out. No contact with anyone. In that cell 24/7/365 days a year for the rest of their lives.
And the only people jailed are those who commit treason. Murderers, pedophiles, rapists and robbers go to a Devil’s Island, where they live their days out there, never allowed off. Island watched, so no one escapes. Those who do are shot. You give them their life, out with your society. They are branded, marked with a symbol for the crime they’ve committed.
(***) Following on from above, we undo all that has been done. So we go back to where it all started, well in Europe. The turning point was Cromwell’s civil war. We can’t change it, but we can what was set up after. The Jew caused that war. The Jew then caused the plague, then the great fire in order to build the City of London and their base of control. Through that they created the Industrial revolution, their wars and of course the British Empire, seizing land abroad, to control vast numbers of people, through controlling their governments and plundering their resources.
So, you immediately arrest ALL Rothschilds and Jews in that land, all put into prison pending trial for treason. Rothschilds already overwhelmingly guilty, so you take their properties, strip them bare and knock them down. You destroy all synagogues in that land. You arrest all communists/socialists. You make worship of Judaism instantly a crime punishable by capital punishment. You immediately remove all Jews from that land. Depending on blood haplogroup, they go to their place of ancestry. 94% will be Khazarian so they go to Russia. Let them deal with them, after you’ve taken all their money and assets. 6% will come from the middle east/Africa. You remove the banking system. You destroy all banks. Money is no longer a tool to be used to buy and sell. If you want clothes you work for them. If you want food you do the same, but as stated above, you learn how to cook, how to sew, knit, darn. You learn how to farm the land, hunt, butcher and prepare. You learn how to cure meats, dry them, pickle them, salt them etc. You pass all these skills down to your young, so by the age of 7 they are fully skilled in all, as it was in the past.
All people not of that nation they all go back to their ancestral lands. You take their passports and destroy them. They were never of the nation they lived in, so their passports are useless. They connect with their culture and are removed from your culture. It is not theirs.
You stop trade with those lands. You don’t need trade, because the west has enough resources to provide for its people. With no export or import, your country becomes 100% self sustainable. Because there is no money, there is no usury and thus no profit. Would you need electricity and water companies in the future? No, not really. Homes would have solar paneling and other forms of electric, very possibly Tesla inventions that have been hidden.
Essentially you create the self sustainable man, able to live off the land and live well. No landlords, no one to pay rent too, what you make you keep. Entertainment disappears. Courtesy of their treason, journalists are arrested like the police, judiciary, politicians, bankers and aristocracy. You do the same with celebrity too. Homosexuality is outlawed. You give them a choice – they conform and choose heterosexuality or they go on the Devil’s Island with the other outcasts.
Schools? Nope, they go too. You teach your children, what they need to survive. You, as a parent give them their schooling. More so, schools are also indoctrination, brain laundries, so you do the same with the teachers as well and they’re arrested, pending trial for treason. Universities will remain, but only for training physicians and surgeons. All trades will go back to apprenticeships as was done in the past. There will be no judges, lawyers, teachers and bankers, so there’s the majority of university students gone.
There will be no art or fashion schools, as what for? Being an artist will resort back to being a trade with apprenticeships. Fashion? Not needed. Therefore you remove the awful model industry. There is so much more that would also go, in society, including cities, factories and other places of mass production. They won’t be needed.
This is really the reality here. Society has been geared towards the space race, solely to bring in the element on an alien species, hellbent on the destruction of humanity. All, of course, 100% BS, because once they’ve run out of Emmanuel Goldsteins on earth, you have an infinite supply of aliens, to choose from, whom you, of course, create.
You reverse everything. You go back to almost an agrarian society. No more mass production. You live off the land and you look after the land. You become one with mother nature and God, once again. You respect life on earth. And of course, the future world has no place for the Jew, regardless. They stay in their lands. They never get out. You impose an immediate execution on sight, should any Jew ever be stupid enough to leave their lands of origin and venture into yours. You teach your children of Jews, of their lies, of their desire for the mass genocide of the world’s non Jewish population and you make sure that they know who and what they are, never to be trusted and never to be allowed into their land.
But no one goes to jail…
A person steals some goods from a store…. Jail.
Too Big To Fail steals millions,,, pay a fine.
Rule of Law… Give me a break!
We’re in full agreement, White Elephant. What you describe sounds pretty close to Paradise to me. I’m getting on a bit now, so I’ll see the real Paradise before our vision can be realised, but we can hope to teach the young while we’re still here.
It’s probably a GOOD thing that zog has chosen to attack the entire world all at the same time because if just one country were to achieve independence, the other zog-controlled countries would bomb it back to the stone age, as we saw with Iraq and Libya.
Oops! Forgot to mention Germany.