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Amazon and Jeff Bezos should take note – looking after employees when they’re sick keeps brands healthy

Campaigners have erected a billboard outside the billionaire's mansion as part of a campaign to get better treatment for staff, writes James Moore

Wednesday 29 April 2020 19:02 BST
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Amazon employees hold a protest and walkout over conditions at the company's Staten Island distribution facility in March
Amazon employees hold a protest and walkout over conditions at the company's Staten Island distribution facility in March

Two weeks of paid sick leave for all Amazon employees would cost less than 1 per cent of CEO Jeff Bezos’s fortune, according to the global consumer campaigning group SumOfUs.

Yes, yes, I know. Most of Bezos’s wealth is tied up in Amazon stock. But so what? It doesn’t make the figure any less valid and the shares have leapt since the middle of March, by more than nearly 50 per cent.

It isn’t hard to see why. The company has picked up a lot of extra business as a result of the closure of brick and mortar retail rivals made necessary by the global pandemic. Wall Street is expecting record earnings to be reported tomorrow, when financial results for the first three months of the year are due.

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