If you are not happy with the way amazon treats it's warehouse workers, you should work to get the law changed, benefiting workers at big and small organisations across lots of jobs.
Targeting Amazon just because it's a household brand simply makes an uneven labor playing field - sure, amazon workers might get paid better after your protest, but J J Doe and Sons Glassworkers won't change their ways. Nor will the no-name Ebayers.
I won't criticize anybodies decision to keep shopping at amazon for this reason, it is very difficult to ethically consume in our current environment.
However, for me, I realized that
1) I am fortunate enough that saving fractions of my order will not make a material difference to me (the amazon cancellation page informed me that i had saved 140 dollars in shipping using prime over the last year)
2) In the current environment, supporting local and/or smaller businesses is more important to me than saving a day of shipping time, or 10% off my order
3) Even if your alternative retailer is equally unscrupulous to its warehouse employees, for instance, a shipper that uses UPS, which is unionized labor with benefits, as opposed to amazon's own courier service which is contract labor with no benefits, can be a meaningful difference.
For me, the above 3 made me realize that I could do without amazon prime despite being a prime member for 10 plus years. For household staples, I am a costco member, and I feel much better about costco's relationship with their employees than amazons. For other purchases, it makes sense for me to consider local alternatives. And I can always use amazon if I need to, I'll just pay shipping.
What if we improved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Amazon employees but didn't completely solve the problem of working conditions across the nation?
Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. You can push for legislation AND cancel your Amazon Prime. Both are valid strategies for letting your voice be heard.
I cancelled my membership because it makes little sense when pretty much all shipping is taking over a week. This is not about getting the laws changed, this is about what tbray wrote in his blog - strong arming the poor employees and not providing a safe working environment. These workers are literally putting their life at risk for you. Why not send a message to Amazon that this is not acceptable?
Targeting Amazon just because it's a household brand simply makes an uneven labor playing field - sure, amazon workers might get paid better after your protest, but J J Doe and Sons Glassworkers won't change their ways. Nor will the no-name Ebayers.