This commentary is by Kate Seaton of Shaftsbury. She is a tech industry professional and serves as a justice of the peace.
In the last 5 years, Vermont has seen a very concerning trend: efforts to further concentrate wealth and extract as many resources as possible. We see examples of this in exorbitant campaign spending, in the decision to sell out vulnerable Vermonters by allowing online gambling, in continued efforts to further privatize or cut public services, in allowing corporate entities to pretty much self-regulate and accepting their proposed price hikes every year.
Private equity is eating up our housing market, gutting medical and veterinary care across the country and laying waste in a variety of ways, yet few notice its creep into Vermont because the world outside our doorstep is literally burning down all around us.
We see the negative impacts of such decisions increasing, yet somehow the same types of choices and justifications persist among our legislators and committee members who are charged with the immense responsibility of stewardship and ensuring a livable, safe Vermont.
We have a new opportunity to make a genuinely good choice for Vermont and our residents by denying Amazon the privilege of building a warehouse in our state in Essex. Will we make the choice that is best for the greatest number of Vermonters, or will we make another short-sighted decision that benefits corporate interests and the wealthiest of Vermonters in exchange for an empty promise (that we know, thanks to decades of public record, is empty)?
It is no secret that Amazon wants to build here because they closed all their Quebec facilities after workers tried to unionize. Allowing Amazon to build a facility here is making a clear statement to Amazon — and every other behemoth looking to exploit workers and kill small local businesses — that Vermont is wide open.
That is telling Vermonters that we don’t care if they’re abused and grossly underpaid, as long as they’re working. That is telling Vermont business owners that we support big box stores destroying their way of life and polluting our land further if it means Vermont might get a few crumbs of tax revenue several years down the road.
Amazon would be a big employer in the region, but they are a notoriously bad employer. They actively campaign against their own workers, they pay unlivable wages and the conditions are grueling.
In the wake of a new Amazon warehouse being built, there are multiple knock-on effects that can completely devastate communities. Surrounding areas inevitably see spikes in air and water pollution, increased traffic and infrastructure overload, housing shortages, skyrocketing rent and an increased demand for services and amenities. Vermont is currently dealing with a number of these challenges as it is. Why make it worse?
There are other ways to create revenue that are sustainable and far more effective. We have a plethora of examples around our own country and the globe that we could pull from to come up with more modern, progressive ways of generating revenue that don’t involve mass exploitation and widening the wealth gap. It’s wide enough.
We have seen our leaders allow efforts such as this latest request from Amazon, claiming their choice to support such efforts are going to create jobs, increase revenue and improve our lives. Anyone with an internet connection or access to periodicals knows this is not true: we have decades of data that very clearly show the negative impacts of big box businesses setting up shop in a given community.
Regardless of party affiliation or circumstance, I think most Vermonters would agree that the country is a mess right now. As a rural state that has moved at a slower pace developmentally than many other U.S. states, we have a very rare opportunity to make better choices and to not repeat the same mistakes our peers have.
What concerns me is that the people often charged with making these kinds of choices are the ones who stand to benefit the most. I am not suggesting every decision-maker is a terrible, corrupt human being, but when one has wealth they tend to want to keep it and will make decisions conducive to that, whether intentional or purely unconscious.
Additionally, urgency doesn’t exist — as we are currently witnessing — when there is no immediate personal threat. If our senators were living paycheck-to-paycheck, I imagine we’d see a very different Washington right now. Our window of opportunity is closing rapidly and we need people with skin in the game who feel the sense of urgency.
We need to send a message to Amazon and the rest of that ilk that Vermont knows its value and will not sell out. Vermont still has a soul and it shouldn’t be offered up like another cheap product to consume and bleed dry.
Say “hell no” to Amazon.
