Amazon, Tesla, Meta considered harmful to democracy

Amazon, Meta, and Tesla have earned the rather dubious honor of being named some of the worst corporate underminers of democracy by the world’s largest trade union federation. 

The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) today published a list of seven companies it said were “emblematic” of the ways large international corporations have begun tossing their weight around to influence global affairs. Those businesses, ITUC noted, violate trade union and alleged human rights, monopolize media and technology, exacerbate the climate catastrophe and try to privatize public services in a way that “protects and expands [their] own profits by undermining democracy.” 

“These companies deploy complex lobbying operations to undermine popular will and disrupt existing or nascent global policy that could hold them accountable,” ITUC wrote. The desire for greater corporate power, the Confederation added, invariably puts corporate interests in bed with anti-democratic political movements like the modern far-right. 

Right-wing politicians, ITUC noted, tend to lower taxes, undercut higher wages for workers, crack down on trade unions, and the like – all things sure to please the likes of corporations like Amazon, Tesla, and Meta as evidenced by plenty of prior reporting and research.

Amazon’s #1!

Topping ITUC’s list is none other than the Andy Jassy-run Amazon, which the confederation said “poses an existential threat to responsive democracy.” 

Amazon, according to ITUC’s research conducted with a number of partners, “has become notorious for its union busting and low wages, monopoly in e-commerce, egregious carbon emissions through its AWS [datacenters], corporate tax evasion and lobbying.” 

Those practices have drawn attention from regulators, which Amazon has attempted to undermine by challenging the constitutionality of the US National Labor Relations Board, ignored hearings in the EU leading to a lobbying ban, and resisted calls to sign health and safety accords, according to ITUC. 

The confederation further accused Amazon of contributing to right-wing political causes that undermine women’s rights and antitrust legislation, and has permitted far-right groups to earn income online, and drive traffic through AWS.  

“The sheer scale of Amazon’s global lobbying operation undermines the democratic responsiveness of governments and institutions to the general population,” ITUC concluded. 

Meta has become powerful enough to rival nations

“Meta’s algorithms can quite literally alter humanity’s perceptions of reality,” ITUC said of the Mark Zuckerberg-run super-corp. Couple that with “Its revenue model exploits trillions of personalised data points to deliver highly effective advertising,” and you have the recipe for a platform powerful enough to rival some nation-states.

The federation claimed it’s heard some referred to Meta as “a foreign state, populated by people without sovereignty, ruled by a leader with absolute power.”

There’s at least some truth to that – after all, the tech giant’s been accused of enrolling European users in its ad-supported tier without asking, and there’s no accounting for the number of privacy complaints its platform has faced over the years. 

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• Stanford Internet Observatory wilts under legal pressure during election year
• Michigan probes Musk-backed PAC website that weirdly tried and failed to help register people to vote

Meta’s international influence has allowed it to be flippant in the face of regulations, as exemplified when it killed news stories in feeds when told it had to pay publishers, ITUC said, or its public call for more privacy laws while reportedly lobbying to undermine them in private. That, coupled with a history of failing to police violent rhetoric on its platforms, has made it dangerous, argues the confederation. 

Tesla is a really bad boss

While Amazon and Meta might be direct underminers of international democratic norms, Tesla is just an absolute shit company to work for.

“The world’s most highly-valued automaker has quickly become known as one of its most belligerent employers,” ITUC said. “Tesla’s rapid market success has been outpaced only by the descent of its corporate leaders into anti-democratic, anti-union politics.”

The confederation cited Tesla’s ongoing refusal to bargain with Swedish employees, poor safety records at its plants, numerous labor disputes, and human rights issues as reasons to call Tesla out as one of the worst corporate offenders, but it doesn’t stop there: ITUC also called Tesla’s environmental record into question, too. 

“[Tesla’s] supply chain relies on nickel mining companies that undermine consultation standards with local Indonesian communities and are deforesting so rapidly that flooding and water pollution threaten neighbourhoods,” ITUC said. The group also called the EV market leader out for the alleged use of child labor in mining copper and cobalt for its vehicles. 

Tesla owner Elon Musk’s many antics were called out as well.

Along with the three tech titans, the ITUC list includes investment management firms Blackstone Group and The Vanguard Group, ExxonMobil, and mining firm Glencore. We contacted all three tech firms about their inclusion on the list, and so far they’ve declined to comment.

“While these seven corporations are among the most egregious underminers of democracy, they are hardly alone,” ITUC said, adding that it considered the neoliberal, corporate-dominated global economy to be the root cause of the modern growth of right-wing politics and threats to global democracy. 

“The future could be one where people and planet are prioritised over exploitative profits,” ITUC said. “But this will only be realised if we win the fight for democracy at work, in societies, and within those same global institutions.” ®