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LEFT-WING US Senator Bernie Sanders has launched an online petition to shame Amazon kingpin Jeff Bezos into paying his employees a living wage.
Friends of Mr Sanders are calling on people around the world to sign the statement, which points out that Mr Bezos’s income of $275 million (£213m) a day means he makes more in 10 seconds than the average Amazon employee earns in a year.
“Jeff Bezos has so much money that he says the only way he could possibly spend it all is on space travel,” Mr Sanders fumed.
“Mr Bezos, it is long past time you start to pay workers a living wage and improve working conditions at Amazon warehouses across the country.”
While the online retail giant’s founder sits on an estimated $151 billion (£118bn) fortune, “thousands of Amazon employees are forced to rely on food stamps, Medicaid and public housing because their wages are too low.
“I don’t believe that ordinary Americans should be subsidising the wealthiest person in the world because you pay your employees inadequate wages,” the petition reads.
Public petitions highlighting the obscene wealth of some of the richest people in the US are becoming a habit with Mr Sanders, who launched one last month pointing out that Disney chief executive Bob Iger’s $423m pay package is unreasonably large.
Mr Sanders lost the Democratic nomination for the presidency to Hillary Clinton in 2016 after high-powered “super-delegates” cancelled out his lead among ordinary party members.
A poll by Politico-Morning Consult this week showed he would be likely to beat President Donald Trump in a 2020 election, as he currently has a 12-point lead over the Republican incumbent.