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Amazon records record $ 3.6 billion profit in first three months of 2019
By
Niles Niemuth
April 27, 2019
Amazon on Thursday announced record profits for the first quarter, more than doubling the amount realized in the same period last year.
The global e-commerce and technology company is controlled by CEO Jeff Bezos, the richest character in modern history, with a net worth of more than $ 150 billion. It made a profit of $ 3.6 billion in the first three months of the year on a global turnover of $ 60 billion. This represents a profit increase of $ 1.6 billion on a $ 51 billion business in the first quarter of last year.
While Amazon's retail sales are growing more slowly than in the past, the company has been able to increase its profit margin by increasing employee profit and developing sales of its cloud computing and advertising services .
"Currently, we are on track to make the most of our capabilities," said Brian Olsavsky, chief financial officer of Amazon, in a conference call with investors. He was referring to a 4% drop in the cost of order fulfillment due to fewer new warehouses and fewer new workers.
Costs have decreased despite the much-announced minimum wage increase for all Amazon workers in the United States last year, at $ 15 an hour. This salary increase, praised by Senator Bernie Sanders, proved to be an accounting trick that allowed Amazon to recover the stocks and other benefits of the workers.
Despite these huge profits, Amazon's accounting department has been able to use various tax credits and tax breaks on stock options for executives, to pay no federal income tax in the last two years. In 2018, Amazon received a $ 129 million discount, for an effective tax rate of -1.2%. In 2017, Amazon received a $ 140 million rebate, an effective tax rate of -2.5%.
Since 2009, the second-largest private employer in the United States has only paid 3% of tax on $ 27 billion in profits, well below the 21% corporate tax rate approved by President Donald Trump in 2017.
With its first quarter record, Amazon is on track to exceed the $ 11.2 billion in profits made in 2018. However, this is not enough for Wall Street, which reacted to the report on the results by maintaining the stock of the company at a stable level on Thursday. . The message is clear: the exploitation of workers in the United States and around the world must be increased so that transportation is even more important in the next quarter and every subsequent quarter.
Amazon has promised that the pressure on its already highly exploited workers would increase with the announcement of the transition from a two day free shipping for its premium service subscribers to a free one day shipping.
"The free one-day delivery will have a price for employees," said Shannon Allen, Amazon's whistleblower at the World Socialist Website. "Soon in an Amazon [fulfillment center] near you: increased employee injury, suicidal thoughts, increased anxiety and depression. And for the confident worker – isolation, increased productivity for the same salary, fewer breaks in the bathrooms, fewer breaks in the water, while watching from your senior position as your colleagues sneak into the house. # 39; ambulance. "
"Talk, have a spine," Allen said to Amazon workers. "This quote is written on the walls at Amazon. You have nothing to lose but your chains. "
Amazon workers are already among the most physically exploited, with warehouse employees in the United States earning an average annual salary of $ 28,000 while being expected to sort and pack products and cartons at extraordinary rates. Many workers have been seriously injured by equipment breakdowns, repetitive movements and heat exhaustion. Workers report urinating in bottles at their work station rather than wasting time sorting packages on their way to the bathroom.
An analysis by The edge Among the documents submitted by Amazon in the context of a labor dispute with a former worker, it was found that the company had put in place an almost fully automated system for tracking and dismissing workers who did not respect the rate criteria. about 300 full-time employees were fired simply for missing quotas. Extrapolated to the entire US workforce, this means that thousands of people are losing their jobs each year to not go fast enough.
On the sweaty workforce of hundreds of thousands of workers around the world, Bezos added $ 50 billion to its net worth in 2018, or $ 2,950 in one second, an average of $ 2,796. per year for an amazon worker in India. If Bezos' $ 150 billion fortune were split evenly among its employees, everyone would receive a bonus of $ 232,000.
Bezos used his fortune to buy the Washington Post $ 250 million in 2013, giving it an essential tool for influencing national policy and developments in the nation's capital. Shortly after buying paper, Amazon won a $ 600 million contract with the CIA. The company is currently nominating a $ 10 billion contract for the provision of cloud computing services to the Department of Defense and plans to open its second headquarters in northern Virginia, only five minutes from the Pentagon.
With its ability to make significant profits from a highly-exploited global workforce, Amazon is becoming the model for businesses around the world. Last month, Amazon and automaker Volkswagen announced a partnership to create an industrial cloud designed to "reinvent [VW’s] manufacturing process and logistics. The joint venture promises the "amazonisation" of the automotive industry, the precariousness of work and the implementation of technologies allowing ever more precise monitoring and control of each movement of workers.
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