Demonstrators greet Amazon shareholders in Seattle
May 24, 2012, 6:57 AM | Updated: 11:23 am
Occupy protestors raised a thought bubble to the hammer man outside of the Seattle Art Museum, during a protest on Thursday. (97.3 KIRO FM/Tim Haeck)
A noisy demonstration on the plaza outside Seattle Art
Museum punctuated Amazon.com’s annual shareholders
meeting. More than 100 members of labor, faith groups, and
others demanded Amazon stop dodging taxes.
Protestors claim the online retailer pays an
effective corporate tax rate of just 2.6 percent.
“Before we cut our educational opportunities for
our children and make our grandmothers eat cat food, we
should actually have the richest corporations in America
pay their fair share,” said John Sellers. Demonstrators
used giant helium balloons to raise a thought bubble above
the head of the museum’s Hammering Man sculpture with a
similar message: “I wish Amazon would pay its fair
share.”
Protestors chanted “dodging taxes, Amazon crooks” as
police guarded the entrance to the Seattle Art Museum.
The group claimed it had a large representation inside the
meeting to confront Amazon executives.
The demonstrators also chastised Amazon.com for worker
mistreatment at an East Coast warehouse and demanded the
company remove support from what the protestors call an
extreme right wing organization known as ALEC.
Amazon has so far not offered a response to the
protest.
