Eyes on Amazon Shareholders
Amazon is scheduled to hold its annual shareholder meeting on May 26. At that meeting, Jeff Bezos and Andy Jassy will report to investors on the company’s performance over the past year and celebrate the $21.3 billion in profits that the company generated for shareholders in 2020. But this year, more than any other, Amazon’s role in our democracy and economy is also on the agenda at Amazon’s shareholder meeting.
On May 24, two days before Amazon’s annual general meeting, we’re going to challenge the institutions who get a vote on Amazon’s future to cast their votes with our communities, not Amazon’s destructive agenda. We’re heading to the doors of Amazon’s biggest shareholders: Vanguard, Blackrock, State Street, Fidelity and T. Rowe Price, to call on them to vote:
NO to Amazon’s Destructive Business Practices (Items 1 and 3)
YES on Ending facial Rekognition (Item 4)
YES on Cutting Ties With ICE and police (Item 14)
YES on Rolling Back Anti-Competitive Monopoly Practices (Item 11)
YES on A Voice for Workers and the End of Worker Surveillance (Item 10)
YES on Stopping Racist Environmental Destruction (Item 9)
YES on Ending Interference Our Democracy (Item 13)
The pandemic and murder of George Floyd forced a reckoning over structural racism in America. Over the last year, organizers and activists came together to hold Amazon accountable for its failed pledge that Black lives matter. Activists fought back against Amazon’s expanding partnerships with violent police departments; protested the firing of Black whistleblowers who worked at Amazon warehouses; and fought Amazon’s environmental damage in Black and brown neighborhoods, disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.
This year, shareholders have filed resolutions challenging the harmful impacts of Amazon’s business practices on the Black and brown communities. Now the big asset managers that have made billions off their investments in Amazon need to step up to vote with our communities and against Amazon’s harmful business practices.
See you on the streets!